Happy birthday, Mom!

My wonderful mom had a birthday yesterday so I had to wait until she received it (which I hope is today!) to post her card. I made this with two SCS challenges: Featured Stamper and Inspiration. The card I chose to CASE for the featured stamper Linda is this one. From the Horchow site for inspiration, I picked this bedding - classic and elegant, and both my mom and I love blue, so it was perfect! I'm also entering in Dynamic Duos for this week's challenge.

Here is my card:

 

When I saw the inspiration photo I immediately thought of this retired DSP in Midnight Muse, which I used for the large scallop circle. The flower image from You Are Loved (also retired) seemed to coordinate perfectly. Based on the inspiration piece and the DSP I chose, I put the Midnight Muse with Crumb Cake and Very Vanilla. I used the polka dot and finial press embossing folders for texture, and I pulled the stripes from the inspiration photo in with the punched pansy. I added a Crumb Cake button and Midnight Muse dahlia with a linen thread bow. The sentiment comes from PTI's Ruby Rose set.

Happy birthday Mom - I love you and I hope you love your card!

Celebrate the Season

It's time for another challenge with Our Creative Corner - I'm glad you stopped by on what is a holiday weekend for those of us in the U.S. With that in mind our hostess, Sarah Gough (who happens to live in New Zealand), asked us to create something seasonal - either for the Fourth of July or Christmas. I don't tend to make patriotic stuff too much, but I saw this star box that Lisa Young made and wanted to try it myself. (You can get a link to Diana Crick's original directions through Lisa's blog.)

I decided to make mine more of a centerpiece, so after putting a bud vase into the box I filled it with skinny dowel rods I'd topped with decorated chipboard shapes. To hide the dowels I put duplicate shapes on the front and back and taped the dowel in between. For decorations I used a bunch of glass glitter, designer paper, cardstock, and iridescent ice embossing to mix up the colors of Whisper White, Real Red and Pacific Point. On the box itself I used the retired set July Fourth - you can barely see, but on the bottom there are sparkly embossed fireworks. The white embossed stars on the blue DP are from the Itty Bitty Bits stamp set.

That's about it for this project - I hope you'll visit the OCC blog to see what everyone else has come up with, and then play along with us! Have a happy Fourth of July and/or a great weekend!

A new card kit!

It's been a while since I did a card kit, so I decided it was time to offer a new one. With this card kit you’ll receive complete instructions and all the consumable supplies needed to make 5 of each of these card designs – a total of 10 cards. The price of this kit is just $15, including envelopes.

If you purchase the monthly kit, you will also have the opportunity to purchase the coordinating stamp set, Party Hearty, at 15% off (tax and shipping not included). This set is already on sale for 30% off this month, so you're getting an even better deal!

Party Hearty wood mount, on sale for $18.87, with purchase of kit $16.04

The rest of the products used in making these cards are given in the list below. Supplies from Stampin' Up! cannot be sold on my blog; please contact me if you'd like to purchase the stamp set or any other supplies. You can also use the kit to make your cards with the supplies you already own. Please note designer paper patterns may vary depending on availability.

This kit will be available through May 31. You will receive your kit within two weeks of your purchase (probably less if no order from Stampin’ Up! is required).

Customers who live local to me and do not need shipping, click here to purchase your kit:


If you are elsewhere in the U.S. click here to purchase the kit plus shipping:






Sorry but kits can only be sold to customers in the U.S.

Lori Rider
loririder (at) verizon (dot) net

Additional product list:

• Early Espresso Classic Ink pad
• Poppy Parade Classic Ink pad/Stampin' Write marker
• Tempting Turquoise Classic Ink pad/Stampin' Write marker
• So Saffron Stampin' Write marker
• 1¾” scallop circle punch
• ¾” circle punch
• 1¾” circle punch
• 2 3/8” scallop circle punch
• Paper snips
• Bone folder
• SNAIL adhesive
• Stampin’ Dimensionals
• Tombow Mono Multipurpose Adhesive
• Mini glue dots
• Crystal Effects

Love you forever

Here's a card I made just for fun! I haven't had the chance to do that in a couple weeks. This card is for the featured stamper challenge on SCS - featuring the amazing Lori Boyd - and the Paper Players challenge to make a romantic card. From Lori's gallery I chose this card - I kept the layout but flipped it, changed the colors and images, left off the ribbon, and added a sentiment.

I started off by stamping a large paper daisy in Poppy Parade with the Dot, Dot, Dot stamp. Next I stamped the Elements of Style flowers in Early Espresso and cut out a portion with Nestabilities, then colored it with Poppy Parade and Pear Pizazz markers. The card base is textured Baja Breeze card stock with a punched border on the bottom (MS punch). For the background I used the Finial Press embossing folder on pear card stock and a strip of poppy DP. Finally I added a retired Baja Breeze corduroy button with a white 1/8" taffeta bow, a sentiment banner (stamped with Fabulous Phrases) and three adhesive pearls.

That's it from me today - thanks for stopping by!

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!

I dunno 'bout this one...

I made this quick card for the featured stamper challenge, which is honoring LeAnne Pugliese today. This is the card I chose - I loved the CAS style and the text going up the side. And I did intend to use text but somehow it didn't work out that way, LOL!

I broke out a stamp set that will be available in the new catalog - it's called Artistic Etchings. The vintage look has a strong presence in the new catalog, and I love that style. I did stick with CAS mostly, though. I inked the medallion with crumb cake, stamped off once, then stamped the three images on the left side of the whisper white panel. The "amour" sentiment and the Eiffel Tower were stamped in basic black. I loved the white space on LeAnne's card, but on mine it just looked like too much white. Did I go too far with the big flower? It's from the pretties kit - I streaked a little crumb cake marker on the petals to make it stand out more. In the center I put a black button from my stash and one of the big pretties kit pearls, then I added kraft taffeta ribbon. Tell me what you think - I honestly don't know if I like this or not!

And we're off

This coming Friday I'm doing a card buffet. I haven't done one since my Twelve Days of Christmas, and obviously I don't have twelve days to get my ten cards ready this time - so it's going to be one busy week of cardmaking! I can think of worse things...


My first card was inspired by the Featured Stamper challenge on SCS. It's been ages and ages since I did a challenge over there. This week the featured stamper is Michelle (aka eliotstamps) and from her gallery I chose this spotlight card. Can you believe I've never done this technique before? I thought that the roses in Elements of Style would be a great image for spotlighting.

I first stamped the image with basic black on whisper white, then punched out a portion with the 1 3/4" circle punch. I used the Circle Scissors Plus to make the black layer circle. I colored the punched image with melon mambo, rose red, old olive and always artichoke markers. Since we don't have border embossing tools, I made the card base vertical and just embossed the bottom with the dot embossing folder. I had to just use a band of ribbon behind the image, and instead of eyelets I used pearls from the Pretties Kit. Once I mounted everything on dimensionals, the card was done, so it's pretty quick and easy, but I think the result is beautiful.

OK, one down and nine to go! If I can manage to get time to blog about my cards as I make them, you will hopefully be seeing more of me this week, and once this week is over, my goal is to find time to play more challenges and post more often than I have been lately. We'll see if I can make that happen. Thanks for visiting today!

The Twelve Days of Christmas (Cards) - Day 7

Whew, the time is flying by... I'm back with another card! This one is the most involved I've made so far, and it's also very heavy - lots of dimensionals. I will probably recommend to my card buffet stampers that they make it a flatter card - you could even leave the knot off the ribbon. But I decided to go all out with my card, since it's always easy to simplify things later.

Today's card is also for the featured stamper challenge, which is honoring Christine (chrisations.ink). I have seen Christine around SCS a lot - in addition to her beautiful cards, she is one of those wonderful stampers who is very good about leaving comments. From Christine's lovely gallery I chose this card, thinking it would be great as a Christmas card.

I liked Christine's use of metallic cardstock, but I wanted to use this twill ribbon from the holiday mini catalog, which I didn't really want to pair with gold or silver. So I turned again to my shimmer paint. For the punched snowflake (from Berry Christmas) I repeated the technique of combining reinker (old olive) with shimmer paint (champagne mist) as I described on this post, but I also used a dauber to apply the champagne paint directly to the stamp for the olive panel. Again, you need very little paint - one tiny dab will do it.

For the rest of my card, I used the tiny dot texture plate with vanilla cardstock. I loved how Christine put the white on white on her card, so I emulated that with vanilla. I used the pennant die for my scalloped edge and a sentiment from Four the Holidays - I couldn't decide whether I wanted real red or old olive ink for it, so I used markers and got both! I really love how this one turned out - I think it's one of my favorites so far.

I just want to give a quick shout-out to my readers and new subscribers - I've now passed 30,000 hits and I obviously couldn't have done it without you! I really appreciate all of your wonderful comments, and don't forget to keep leaving them to be entered to win the hidden Christmas blog candy that will go to one lucky commenter on my Twelve Days of Christmas posts!

For my dearest husband...

It's that time again - time to make Todd an anniversary card! This year makes #9 for us. I can hardly believe it!

I had to combine my card with a challenge, of course - and the featured stamper challenge gave me the perfect thing. The featured stamper this week is Heather (aka tankgrl) and her gallery is amazing. I had a hard time choosing but found just what I was looking for when I went to the last page of her gallery - this card just called out my name right away.

Instead of using a text background stamp, I used a sheet from the Night & Day specialty paper (in the holiday mini) and stamped the French Filigree background stamp over top in basic black. I know that Todd thinks it's weird when you can read the words in the background, so I'm hoping to distract him from doing that - because if you read the words on this paper, they really are weird. They don't make any sense at all!

For my always artichoke panels I used the retired Juntos paper from the Spanish catalog, and I stamped a second-generation French Filigree onto those as well. My image is from Leaf Lines, and was stamped with black craft ink and embossed with clear EP. I used a sentiment from Short & Sweet and added retired Ribbon Originals black cord ribbon as an embellishment. My brads are faux brads - I decided I wanted to add them after the card was all put together. So I punched the circles with the larger hole on my Crop-a-dile and glued them down.

Don't look now...

I actually played an SCS challenge. It's been a long time - about a month, I think! That might be a record. Well, I needed to make a birthday card so it seemed like the perfect chance to play the featured stamper challenge. And for today's challenge: the fabulous Shannan Teubner. You know her, you love her... she's amazing!

Out of all of Shannan's wonderful cards I picked this one for my CASE. I thought it would suit the style that my friend would like. I looked through my stamps and decided I would use the hostess set Asian Artistry. I went for softer colors, and I changed the layout quite a bit. I used brads but placed them differently, added some ribbon, and changed the sentiment treatment. I also made it a 5 1/4" square card - since I'm hand delivering this one, I don't need to worry about extra postage, and then I had plenty of room for my big circle.

First I stamped the image in chocolate chip on mellow moss cardstock, then added shading with white gel pen. Tip of the day: The white ink takes longer to dry than you might think! Watch out for smudges. I used Nestabilities for my circles, with really rust and chocolate chip cardstock. The background papers are from the retired Spanish set Juntos. I covered the join of the papers with chocolate chip taffeta ribbon, and I tried to add a bow but it didn't really fit on this card. LOL! The sentiment is from Teeny Tiny Wishes, and I used whisper white textured cardstock for it and the base. I used the large oval and offset the words all the way to the left, punched a scalloped oval from textured rust cardstock, then punched a small oval out of chocolate chip and made a tab, with a Making Memories copper brad to hold it together. Then for balance I added three more brads in the upper left. I don't know if you can see, but there are lots of dimensionals on this card: the center moss and rust circles were adhered over the chocolate chip scalloped circle with them, as was the sentiment, and then I even used them to adhere the square to the card base. I figured I'd go crazy with popping things up since this isn't going in the mail!

This might be the only card that I get to make till the next DDIC on Thursday... sometimes I need to pay the bills, LOL. This is one of those weeks when I actually have some freelance work. But I'll definitely be back on Thursday, if not before. I also want to say thank you so much to all my new followers and subscribers - I'm really pleased to have you here and I hope you enjoy what you see!

Double feature!

I had a great time with the featured stamper challenge today - so great that I made two cards! The first one was CASEd from this card. I kept the flowers going down the side and the framed sentiment, but I added ribbon and piercing, changed the colors and images, and placed the frame in a different spot. My flowers are from For All You Do (love this new set), the frame from Gallery, and the sentiment from Sincere Salutations. The colors are soft sky (which I still love) and not quite navy, which allowed me to use this gorgeous ribbon from the Elementary Ribbon Originals. All three ribbons in the pack are great, but this ribbon alone makes it totally worth the price!

Here's my second card. This one is a CASE of this card. I kept the top and bottom strips with the offset image panel, but I made it an oval and much larger - not really my intention but that's how it goes sometimes! I left off the ribbon since there wasn't really room, but I added a punched border (EK Success) to the top and bottom panels, and I also included a sentiment and some pearls (Martha Stewart). I stamped these beautiful flowers from Penny Black with Memento tuxedo black on PTI white and colored with Copics. (I'm also submitting this card for the Copic Creations botanicals challenge.) My papers are Basic Grey: Wassail (I figured toile doesn't have to be for Christmas!) and Sultry. The green cardstock is Bazzill Capers, and the sentiment is by Savvy Stamps. I used my new modern label punch for the first time - I love how the pearls fit perfectly into the round bits on the ends!

I've had a great weekend - the IC yesterday was lots of fun, and I've really enjoyed all the challenges I played. I can't promise I will have as much time to create in the coming week, but I hope you'll see me back soon!

Circle Circus

I purchased the Circle Circus set during the preview but haven't played with it much yet. For today's featured stamper challenge I found the perfect card in Diane's gallery (which is lovely) for showcasing this set.

I made my own background with more mustard CS and various images from the set stamped in mustard, soft suede, and ruby red. Then I stamped the larger, bolder images in the same colors and punched them out. For the popped-up circle I stamped the image in ruby red, then added 1/8" punched circles of soft suede and a filigree brad.

I decided to change the ribbon treatment a little by putting it over the sentiment panel. I used the "wonderful" stamp from Wonderful Favorites and accented with two of the smallest circles from the set. And that's it!

Button Butterfly Birthday

Here's a quick challenge card for today. When was the last time I played the featured stamper challenge? If I can't remember, then it's clearly been a while! Today's lucky stamper is Kelly (aka schirmcat) who has a huge and lovely gallery. I chose this card because I liked her butterflies so much and had an idea for what my card would be almost instantly.

The starting point for my card was actually this ribbon, which I found on clearance for 25 cents! It's a good match for melon mambo. My next choice was the Great Friend butterfly, which is probably my favorite butterfly stamp. I was trying to decide on a color scheme and decided to check the Walk in the Park DP that matches the stamp set, which is where I found this beautiful saffron paper. Then I knew that I wanted to put a bunch of buttons onto the ribbon, and I pulled out the Button Latte set and found saffron and vanilla there, so I was good to go. (The other buttons are from my vintage button stash.)

I first layered the DP to melon cardstock, punched the corners (with an EK Success punch), and added the strip of ribbon where Kelly had her fence. Next I stamped the butterfly in melon on vanilla cardstock, cut it out, and mounted with dimensionals. I tied my buttons with hemp twine and adhered with glue dots. I chose the sentiment (My Sentiments Exactly) and stamped with melon right onto the saffron paper, then isntead of brads I added a row of piercing under the sentiment. I didn't want to add any more embellishments with all those buttons! To finish up I echoed the piercing in the upper corners and called it done! Not a lot of time today so I kept it simple. Some days are just like that... and that's OK!

Cottage Rose

Here I am doing cottage style again - for some reason today I felt like doing a sweet and feminine card. In honor of all the moms out there, perhaps?
I'm doubling up on challenges today - I am so busy that I shouldn't be playing challenges at all, but my Mother's Day gift to myself was taking time out to make a card. Yesterday's inspiration challenge on SCS was so cool that I just didn't want to miss it. My favorite pillow from Steph's chosen site was this one. This card is also for the featured stamper challenge, honoring Beth's friend Debbie (DbDoodle). Her style is so fun! I picked this card for my CASE. I kept the oval layout but I flipped it (and moved the ribbon accordingly). I used Nestabilities for cutting/embossing and cut out my flower as Debbie did. Then I added scallops and a dry embossed background, and I shrunk the size of the patterned paper for my card and left off the buttons.

I thought A Rose Is a Rose was the perfect stamp set for this inspiration piece. I stamped the rose in pretty in pink and regal rose, and the leaves in certainly celery and garden green. I used baja breeze embossed with the little dot texture plate for the background, and in the center added a strip of regal rose paper from the hostess Patterns Pack II. The white scallops at the edges of the striped paper were made with a long rectangle Nesties die that I just trimmed to fit. The flower is up on dimensionals. For my bow I used the celery poly-twill ribbon from SAB.

I tried and tried to make a sentiment fit on the card front, but nothing I tried looked right. So I did something that I think is a blog first for me - I decorated the inside. It's pretty minimal but I like it. The sentiment (in baja breeze) comes from Three Little Words, and the rosebud is from the same set and was stamped in the same colors.

Thanks for visiting today - I hope everyone has had a wonderful weekend!

Soft Morning Glory

Hey, two days in a row I've played a challenge. Let's see how long this lasts... Today's featured stamper is Stacy (aka Twinshappy), and let me tell you - I didn't even begin to look at all 15 pages of her gallery! Clearly she deserves to be featured, and her work is amazing. I chose this card for my CASE. I kept the layout basically the same, but I made a different scored panel (although I really like what Stacy did and will have to try it sometime), changed the image and colors, used brads in the corners, and added an extra layer as the card base.

I've had this Morning Soft image for a while but this was the first I'd used it. (Can I just say that I don't really miss trimming and mounting stamps - at all!) I stamped the flowers in always artichoke and colored with mellow moss, almost amethyst and lovely lilac markers (with just a touch of only orange in the centers). On the flowers I colored over all the shading with the lilac and then colored over with the amethyst and used a blender pen to soften the lines. I am much less experienced with coloring with markers - how did I do?

I cut the whole thing out and mounted with dimensionals over my scored background (made with a Scor-Pal). I used the ticket corner punch and vintage brads to accent the corners of the scored panel and the artichoke layer underneath, then mounted that with pop-up glue dots onto a panel of moss DP from the retired Winter Retreat scrap kit. On that layer I wrapped a piece of retired artichoke ribbon from Theater Originals around, and then used more dimensionals to mount that on a white top-folded card. The sentiment is the single stamp Glad Friends, stamped in artichoke on amethyst cardstock and punched with the designer label punch, then layered over a 1 3/8" artichoke circle. I added a flower from the Pretties Kit with another brad because it just seemed to need something else, but I'm not sure about it. Any suggestions?

Thanks for stopping by today. I've enjoyed my stamping time this weekend and I'm crossing my fingers that the week ahead will hold more of the same. But after last week, I'm not making any promises!

Pixie Blooms

It was a busy day here, with my stamp club meeting and church, but I had to squeeze in a challenge card for the featured stamper challenge. Today's stamper was Judy (aka StampingQueenJAR) who is such a great artist and person. Congrats, Judy! I picked this card because I liked the layout and I thought watercoloring would be fun today. I kept the layout (with fewer layers) and used some similar embellishments, but I changed the image and colors and used patterned paper instead of a stamped background. I also added some piercing.

I never got to play last week's color challenge (chocolate chip, pixie pink and kiwi kiss), and once I decided to use this flower image from Bloomin' Beautiful, that seemed like a great color combination for this card. For my watercoloring I used watercolor crayons and a kiwi reinker with my Aqua Painter. This pretty kiwi paper is from the Sweet Nothings Simply Scrappin' kit (can I just say, this kit is gorgeous). I pulled out my kiwi kiss satin ribbon and my retired copper Hodgepodge Hardware - I am almost out of these oval frames, which are my favorite. (Sniff.) The sentiment is from Sincere Salutations. It all went onto a very vanilla card base.

I think that's about it for this one - pretty simple! I am really hoping that I will be able to post more regularly in the coming weeks. I'm itching to make all kinds of stuff. And don't forget that I will choose someone to receive a ribbon goody bag tonight at 10 pm Eastern - please leave me a comment on my ICs to enter. The post is at the top of my blog home page. Thanks!

Hooray for Kelly H!

Kelly is today's chosen featured stamper and does she ever deserve it! She has a huge and amazing gallery. It took a while just to choose which card to CASE! In the end I picked this one - it just spoke to me. I kept the layout but made it a square card, used chocolate chip but with baja breeze, and made my own background instead of using a background stamp. I also left off the brads because, in all honesty, I forgot! But I don't think there was room for them anyway.

For my main panel I used the gorgeous flower image from Friends 24-7. It was stamped in chocolate chip on whisper white, then I accented the flowers and leaves with just a little bit of baja breeze ink and a blender pen. For layers I used baja breeze cardstock and the chocolate chip damask print paper from Parisian Breeze. I sponged the edges of everything with chocolate chip. The background is made with the damask stamp from the same set, with chocolate chip ink stamped off once. I added sponging over the whole panel, with extra on the edges, and some polka dot ribbon from the Valet pack.

The sentiment is from Thoughts and Prayers - I just colored the "Thinking of You" part with a marker. What do you think of my punch layering? This is a bit funky for me! I used the curvy label punch to make the layers. First I punched one label and placed it vertically behind the oval, then I punched another label and with it oriented the "correct" way I cut it in half, then adhered each half to the two ends of the oval.

This shabby chic style is one of my most favorites - I hope you like it, too! Have a wonderful day!

안녕하세요

No, you are not on the wrong blog! My post title today is the formal "hello" in Korean, pronounced “Ahn-YOUNG-ha-SEH-yo." Why am I greeting you in Korean? Well, it's a two-part answer. Part 1 is the featured stamper challenge for today, featuring Jami (sgtStamper), who lives in Korea. Part 2 is that as a senior in college, I spent my last three months of school living in Taegu, South Korea. I chose to CASE Jami's beautiful Korean thank-you card partly out of my fondness for this country where I was lucky enough to spend a short amount of time.

Jami's card used one of Beate's sketches, so I flipped the layout and fiddled with it some. I used similar colors but did stamping instead of making my own flowers and stem.

I started with the largest image from the hostess set Echoes of Kindness. I stamped with jet black Stazon on watercolor paper, then watercolored with an Aqua Painter and riding hood red and kiwi kiss reinkers. The sentiment comes from the retired hostess set Best Yet. For the background I used a panel of black dry-embossed cardstock, embossed with the swirl texturz plate. Behind the flowers I put a strip of Scenic Route Sonoma paper edged with a strip of scalloped border in kiwi. I punched out the scallop circle punch to tie those elements together and added three vintage brads in the upper right corner.

Thanks for stopping by today, and don't forget to check out my ribbon giveaway post requesting feedback on my blog inspiration challenges. I was going to draw the winner tonight but I haven't received very many comments yet, so I'll extend it for a week. I'd really love to know your thoughts!

A Cheep Hello

Hey, it's my first chance to really play with some goodies from the Sale-a-Bration catalog. There is great stuff to choose from this time around - I honestly love all of it! I broke out the designer paper, Delicate Dots, and the ribbon (so saffron wide grosgrain; you also get certainly celery poly-twill), and paired them with the Cheep Talk stamp set for my featured stamper challenge card. Today's featured stamper is juliemlacey - I'm not sure I've been to her gallery before, but her creations are gorgeous so I don't know how I could have missed it! This is the card I chose to CASE. I fell in love with the layout and thought it would be good to showcase this stamp set.

I mostly kept the layout except that I flipped it to make room for my bigger stamped panel, and then I had to fiddle with a couple of the other elements to make it all work together. I was bummed that I didn't have room for a knot on my ribbon. I used different colors and images (obviously) and added a little paper piercing. I used the new 5/16" white brads - aren't they cool?

To make my stamped panel, I first stamped the branch in certainly celery, then colored the bird with bashful blue, so saffron and chocolate chip markers. For dimension I cut out another impression of the bird's body and popped it up. The flower was stamped in saffron, cut out, and mounted on dimensionals. One of the last things I did was stamp the flower again with chocolate chip ink and cardstock, then I punched out the center with the 1/2" circle punch. I think it really made the flower pop.

I think that's it for today. I have a really busy week ahead - and it's also school vacation week so Ben and I are going to have a lot more time together than usual... wish me luck! Thanks for stopping by today. Have a great week!

Parisian Freesia

Wow, I am really challenge deprived these days. I've been working on a freelance project and stuff for my Etsy shop, but I haven't been able to play a challenge in a while. I always love the featured stamper challenge so I'm glad I had time for this one. Today's featured stamper is K (Karen) Dunbrook - congrats, Karen! I'm not sure I've been to her gallery before, but she does lovely work. This card was right up my alley. I kept the layout and the black accents, and used similar stamp placement and embellishments but changed the images and the colors and used slightly different treatments of the various elements. This is a BIG card - almost 6" square. But I needed that much area to pull off this design and I love the result.

For the center of the white panel I used an Inkadinkado canvas stamp in baja breeze, stamped off once first. Over that I stamped this gorgeous Cornish Heritage Farms freesia image in basic black. I added the sentiment from Short & Sweet then paper pierced a line under the words. At the corners I used some of the black ribbon from the Valet Ribbon Originals and a baja breeze button tied with black embroidery floss. I mounted this with dimensionals over a panel of Parisian Breeze paper. Instead of stitching I used some retired rub-ons in the corners. One more black layer and a card made from textured white cardstock - and that was it!