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!

New Color Creation #8

I promised you one more new color card, and here it is. Using the SCS sketch challenge, I created this card featuring the last of the new colors: Concord Crush, one of the In Colors for the next two years. I used a color combination I found in the new catalog and paired it with Rich Razzleberry, Perfect Plum, and So Saffron. This can be found on p. 123. I also borrowed the bird idea from a card on p. 17 of the catalog - it's one of my favorite samples in the whole IBC. (One more day!! No, I'm not excited at all!!!!)

First I stamped the floral block from For You All Do with razzleberry ink onto razzleberry card stock, then punched the bird's body from that. I added a plain plum wing and saffron branches on a panel of Very Vanilla card stock. The background is made up of a saffron card base stamped with the largest and smallest flowers from the same stamp set, a panel of plum DP, and a razzleberry strip embossed with the square lattice folder. I used Concord Crush card stock for all the layers. The sentiment is from On a Pedestal. It might be hard to see, but the scalloped layer was cut from the Pennant die, then I trimmed it to size and added the three saffron Button Latte buttons (tied with linen thread) in the scallops.

OK, so you've now seen all of the new colors on my blog. I hope you've enjoyed them - I've had a blast playing with them and it'll be fun to keep incorporating them into my work in the coming weeks. I'll be back tomorrow with the DDIC of the week!

New Color Creation #7

I'm back with another new color combo, featuring one of the two colors I haven't shown yet. This card uses the new In Color called Poppy Parade. When I first saw this color I wasn't sure I liked it, but I think it's growing on me after working with it. I did a couple other new things with this card: my first easel card, which was today's challenge at the relatively new challenge blog Always Playing with Paper.

I used Beate's tutorial on SCS to make my card, following the variation for A2 size. The main panel starts at 3 1/8", with a 3 1/4" poppy square, a 3 13/16" Daffodil Delight square punched with the scallop trim punches, then finished with Old Olive on the base poppy layer. I stamped two flowers from Punched Posies in daffodil, then punched out poppy centers.

Here's a shot of the bottom of the card. To hold up the easel I used more scallop punched strips over the white sentiment panel, then I added the daffodil butterfly. I let the scallops and piercing be my "embellishments" - no need for anything else here. The sentiment comes from the new hostess set Occasional Quotes - just a few more days until the new catalog goes live on July 1 and you can get all these great products for yourself!

OK, one more color left to show you, so watch for that later this week - I promise to do that one card, at the very least!

New Color Creation #6

Are you having fun seeing all the new colors? I think I've used all but one and I'll try to get it in before July 1! This is a card that we'll make at my club meeting this week. I used two new colors, Blushing Bride and Cajun Craze, along with Very Vanilla, Old Olive and Soft Suede. I am loving all the fresh color combos that these new colors offer!

My card is a CASE of this card, which I just thought was fabulous. I kept more of the original than I usually do - it was so great that I had to! The "notebook" paper was made with my scoring tool and spiral punch, then I took the Soft Suede pad directly to the card stock before sponging on a bunch more. I used With All My Heart and Sweetheart with the extra large flower punch to make my image - I just love these stamps together. I kept the A to Z image on the blush panel - the Soft Suede was stamped off once to keep it from being too dark. The faux ricrac is done with the scallop edge punch - I started with a 1" strip of Cajun Craze card stock, punched one side, then offset the punch to do the other side. I used a tab of 1 1/4" striped ribbon and a sentiment from All Holidays to finish it off.

I'm still working on what the other two club projects will be, so I'd better get back to it. Thanks for stopping by - I always appreciate those of you who visit!

New Color Creation #5

This card will be going to my wonderful husband tonight. It features the new colors of Cherry Cobbler and Early Espresso, along with Night of Navy. It's also for the Sweet Sunday sketch challenge.

I first stamped the Medallion with cherry ink onto naturals ivory card stock, then I inked the stamp again with the navy ink and stamped it a second time so I could punch out the center. I had the idea to stamp another cherry medallion on the cherry card stock to layer the image - what do you think of this effect? I used dimensionals to position the three separate parts in the right spot. In the corner I added three silver brads, then I used my Memory Box sentiment and the modern label punch and Movers & Shapers. The last touch was a strip of navy DP (from the current hostess pack) on an espresso card base.

I'm off to play with the kids in the sprinkler - Todd is taking a much-deserved nap and we will give him his gifts tonight. Happy Father's Day to all the dads - including my own! Love you, Dad!

New Color Creation #4

I'm back with some more new colors - something bright and cheery this time! This is also my card for this week's challenge at Our Creative Corner. Our hostess Linda Coughlin asked us to CASE one of the other OCC team members. What a tough decision - so much wonderfulness to choose from! I ended up picking this card from Sarah Gough. It had the happy, summery look I was going for and I just love Sarah's style, whether clean and simple or full of vintage detail.

Looking at Sarah's card I immediately thought of the new hostess set called Apple Blossoms. The colors I chose are Daffodil Delight, Pear Pizazz, and Peach Parfait (another of the new In Colors - this was my first time trying it out). The flowers were inked with a faux rock and roll technique - I used the peach marker on the edge after inking them in daffodil. I flipped the layout to fit my flowers and simplified things a bit. Instead of stitching - I don't sew on my cards, or on anything, LOL - I used a little bit of piercing. I embossed the pear card stock panel with the finial press folder and added three strips of daffodil ribbon around it. The finishing touch was the sentiment, which I topped with a daffodil bow.

Be sure you visit the OCC blog to see all the creations from the team - I can't wait to find out who CASEd whom!

New Color Creation #3

Here's a simple Father's Day card I made this morning to send to my father-in-law. My new colors I'm featuring today are Pear Pizazz and Cajun Craze. Pear Pizazz is one of the upcoming In Colors - and these five fun colors will be with us for two years! It's a pretty green, darker than Certainly Celery but lighter than Old Olive. Cajun Craze is a lovely rusty dark orange.

I took one of the stamps from Leaf Lines and stamped it three times with Chocolate Chip on naturals white card stock, then I colored it with Pear Pizazz and Cajun Craze markers. I added the sentiment (from Memory Box) in Cajun Craze and pierced a line under it for emphasis. In two corners I added retired Hodgepodge Hardware copper brads. Finally I finished off with a panel of Pear Pizazz embossed with the square lattice folder.

I hope you're enjoying seeing previews of the new colors as much as I'm loving playing with them. July 1 is just around the corner, right?

New Color Creation #2

Let's see if I can manage to start a little blog series - I will try to keep up with it, LOL! Since we have so many new colors, the possible combinations are just swirling around in my head. So I'm going to make a point of featuring at least two new colors on my cards between now and July 1. I'm calling this one New Color Creation #2 because my ice cream card was really my first card in the series. Sounds like fun, right?

This is also another card for the featured stamper challenge for today. LeAnne had so many great cards that I couldn't choose just one! This card jumped out at me for the way she put the scalloped circles under the ribbon, and I just had to try something similar.

I picked the Tropical Party stamp set for my flowers. The large flower is done in Cherry Cobbler and the small flower in Marina Mist. These two colors are *swooooon* gorgeous! I used one of the old olive prints from the matching Island Oasis papers, then for my darkest color I chose Early Espresso. I added faux stitching to my strip of Marina Mist card stock since I don't have any wide ribbon in these colors (yet?). The sentiment comes from Perfect Punches, and I stamped it in Early Espresso then colored in "friend" with my Cherry Cobbler marker. It's layered on Early Espresso thanks to my Movers & Shapers dies. I added a Playground olive button threaded with Marina Mist ribbon. The bow is not actually tied through the button - I just used glue dots - but it looks like it is, doesn't it? Pretty cool trick that may have convinced me I *need* this ribbon in every color!

Chocolate Sprinkles

This week's challenge at Our Creative Corner is to make a card inspired by whatever summer means to you. I thought of a few different things but one memory that has always stood out from my childhood summers is riding our bikes to a local ice cream place that sold HUGE cones of the yummiest handmade ice cream for 25 cents. I loved going there as a kid and to this day ice cream is one of my favorite things in the world.

I combined this with the SCS inspiration challenge (the colors and the dots in this bedding set). I used the fun stamp set called Sweet Scoops for my card. Along with that, I couldn't wait to break out some of the goodies I got with my new catalog preorder! The colors on this card are early espresso, crumb cake (formerly kraft), blushing bride (one of the new In Colors) and whisper white. The layout comes from the Sweet Sunday sketch challenge. I stamped the scoops with the reverse kissing technique and put them onto cutouts from the scallop oval die. Of course I had to have chocolate ice cream for this card. The crumb cake scoop needed some chocolate sprinkles - perhaps it's coffee ice cream? Yum... OK, moving on...

The background is a panel of whisper white embossed with Perfect Polka Dots, with a panel of crumb cake cardstock stamped with - what else? - more chocolate sprinkles. You can never have too many, right? Since I can't get ribbon in blushing bride yet, I made my own with a narrow strip of cardstock and some faux stitching. Finally I added the sentiment, from the new set Perfect Punches. The only thing that isn't SU is the button, which I found in my stash - and it's a perfect match so I'm sure I'll be using these again. I threaded it with the new 1/8" taffeta ribbon in early espresso - if you cut it to a very sharp point this ribbon threads through the button holes quite nicely. I think this will be a fun addition to our ribbon selection!

OK, now I really want some ice cream... I know you will enjoy seeing what all the OCC team members have come up with for summery cards this week. I hope you'll play along with us!