Saturday, June 25, 2011

Best Wishes, Diva Style!

This week at Our Creative Corner we have a special challenge for you - we're looking to add some new members to our design team, so for our challenge we want you to make a card that showcases your style and tell us what makes it yours. Of course the team will be providing inspiration with creations that show our individual styles. I hope my card captures some of my favorite aspects of card making - it doesn't use *everything* I would consider to be "my style" but there are definitely elements that really speak to me.

My card was inspired by Heather Summer's card here - you will see the elements I kept but I think I also put a lot of my own ideas into it. The colors came from a challenge that's new to me - CR84FN. They asked for aqua, green and yellow, so I combined So Saffron with two of the new In Colors, Pool Party and Lucky Limeade. We'll be making this card at my club this weekend.

I started with the vertical panel. First I used a clear block and inked it directly with So Saffron, then stamped it onto Very Vanilla card stock. Next I used Early Espresso to stamp my flower image, which is from Friends 24-7, one of my favorite retiring sets (sniff). I masked the flowers off and also created a negative frame to mask around the edge of the image before stamping the words (from the set Charming) over the background. Finally I colored the image with markers - I love the look of the different layers and the vintage feel.

One thing that usually characterizes my cards is a tendency toward clean and simple - and in this case I used even fewer layers than I usually do! So much for my typical style, LOL. But I didn't want to take away from the softer colors. I used a saffron base, a limeade panel embossed with the Vintage Wallpaper folder, and a strip of Pool Party cut with the Tasteful Trim die. I added pearls on the scallops, Old Olive satin ribbon, and a punched sentiment from Short & Sweet. I like putting the sentiments vertically when the layout doesn't lend itself to another placement.

Well, whether this is my typical style, I'm not completely sure, but I enjoyed making the card. I hope you'll consider playing the challenge - you won't regret it! And don't forget to check out what the rest of the team has made this week. With all the creativity on the team you're bound to see some beauties. Thanks for visiting my blog today - have a great weekend!

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Punchy Flowers

Hi there! Another week has flown by - my past few days have been dominated by a visit from some family (yay!) and some unexpected car issues (boo!) but I finally got time to stamp for this week's challenge at Our Creative Corner, which I'm hosting again this week. This time it's a color challenge with a twist. These are the colors:


The twist is to use at least three punches, and at least one has to be a border punch. Don't be scared, it's not hard! :) I easily used four on my card and it wouldn't have been hard to use more than that. I do love my punches! My layout is from Pals Paper Arts, who have a sketch challenge this week.
Here's my card. I decided to feature the triple blossom punch; each flower has two layers plus a center that came from one of the bitty punches. I added a silver brad in the center of each flower. For the stems I used the branch from Cheep Talk (which is retiring! I'm so sad about that one!). The sentiment is from Occasional Quotes and I stamped it inside one of the Four Frames images. (Not much longer and the new catalog will be live - I can't wait! This time of year is always bittersweet, LOL!) My designer papers come from the Brights and the Evening Soiree packs, and I added some retired Regal Rose 5/8" grosgrain ribbon. The border punch is non-SU.

I hope you will come check out all the team members' work this week, and then join in the challenge! We love seeing your creations every week!

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Amy Butler Inspiration

Guess who is hosting the next two challenges at Our Creative Corner - me! It's always so much fun to see what everyone comes up with. For my first week I returned to something near and dear to my heart - an inspiration challenge. I hadn't done one in a very long time, and it really felt good. The inspiration photo is this book cover, and the author is none other than the fabulous fabric maven Amy Butler.


I put one extra little requirement with this challenge - I am asking participants to choose two elements from the inspiration photo to incorporate into their projects and describe what those two elements are. I find it so interesting to see what aspects of the photo grab people - they are never the same!


OK, here is my card. I thought this flower image looked a lot like the fabric shown on the left side of the book cover - it's not SU, it's by Savvy Stamps, but I just had to use it. Everything else is SU, though, and I included some new stuff. Yay for new stuff! Since there was orange in the inspiration photo I pulled out Calypso Coral. I will freely admit that I was not a fan of Cameo Coral - this color is much, much better. I don't know if it'll be my favorite new color, but at least it doesn't hurt my eyes. LOL. The green is another new color, Lucky Limeade. How does this green compare to other greens we've known and loved? Well, imagine if Old Olive and Kiwi Kiss got mixed together - it's very similar to the kiwi but is less yellow, and it's just a touch lighter than the olive. You can't go wrong with this green, I'm thinking! My other colors are So Saffron and Chocolate Chip.

What else is new... oh, the lace ribbon punch! Love, love, love it! I somewhat took my layout from the book cover by putting the embossed panel on the left, but it was better balance to put it in from the edge a little. What do you think of the punched strip on top of the embossing? I've never done it before and I kind of like it! The other new thing is the designer paper, which comes from the Flirtatious specialty paper pack. This is going to be a big seller because it has die-cut doily paper in it. Awesome stuff. The sentiment is from Hodgepodge Happiness - a retiring set, sniff! As a final touch I added just a bit of white 1/8" taffeta ribbon that I colored with the coral marker. We can't get the new In Color ribbon yet (you are going to love it) so I took advantage of supplies I did have and made my own!

OK, so you have your challenge - go stamp something! And make sure you visit the OCC blog to see the rest of the wonderful creations from our fabulous team!

Friday, June 10, 2011

Cherries for Friendship

It's been a while since I had time - or made the time - to create something just for fun. I sent a finished freelance project off yesterday, so I felt like I could take a little break from my crazy life and do a couple challenges. This card is for the colourQ challenge (Cherry Cobbler, Crumb Cake, Early Espresso, Soft Suede, Very Vanilla), the Viva la Verve sketch challenge, and the Pals Paper Arts challenge, which is called What's Your Signature Style? I tend toward clean(er) and simpl(er), sometimes vintage, sometimes cute and sweet... I was tickled that my fellow OCC DT member Wendy Janson commented on my recent baby card being a "Lori card." I guess I do have a typical style and I hope today's card shows it!


This card features a sneak peek stamp set from the new catalog - Cherish Friendship. The images are really sweet and great for coloring - I chose to do some watercoloring for this card. It's always a treat for me to sit down and color - in fact I'm spending all day tomorrow coloring at the Copic certification class in Boston! But I digress... I did my watercoloring with reinkers and a tiny paintbrush. The sentiment is from the same stamp set. At the bottom of the center panel I added two strips of cherry seam binding with crochet trim on top. The eyelet border punch gave me the right look for the bottom trim, and as long as we're doing signature style, I had to put a couple buttons on there. The background DP is retired Soft Suede, and I sponged all the edges with espresso ink to up the vintage factor.

This was fun - I hope it's not several weeks until I get to craft something for fun again! Thanks for visiting and I'll be back tomorrow for the weekly OCC challenge!

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Wedding Doilies

Whew, another week has gone by - we're getting a new roof put on our house so it's been a little crazy around here. I did find a little time for stamping, though - just in time for my preorder from the new catalog to arrive! YAY! I used a few of the new products on my card for this week's challenge at Our Creative Corner. Sharon Wheet is back with a recipe wedding challenge - the ingredients are sheer fabric, pearls, a flower, some kind of trim, and stitching (real or faux).

As I was looking at all the fun new stuff, I picked out three items I thought would work well together for a wedding card: the Delicate Doilies stamp set, the Perfect Pennants die (which has a couple cool doily-type circles) and one of the new In Colors, Pool Party. I *love* this color - it reminds me of Soft Sky, which was one of my absolute favorites. I paired it with black and white for a classic look.

First I embossed black card stock with two of the doily images - they cover the whole panel. The sentiment from Word Play (which I also embossed) fits perfectly in the 1 3/4" circle punch, which also goes nicely inside my white doily die-cut. I added faux stitching around the edge of the circle. My flower was made with the triple flower punch, with pearls for the center. I had to cheat a little on one of the requirements - I only had sheer organza ribbon, no sheer fabric. The color of this ribbon is just a hair lighter than the Pool Party card stock. I wrapped it around the black layer three times for a layered effect, then added white 1/8" taffeta ribbon on top. Three more pearls in the corner finished off my card - and I think I like it!

I know the team will create beautiful wedding projects this week so be sure you visit the OCC blog to check them out. And as always we hope you will play along with us!