Something old, something new...

The limited supply challenge today on SCS was so much fun! We were to use the wedding adage of something old, new, borrowed, and blue.

My something old: Timeless papers from Deja Views, and my Carte Postale set - one of the first SU sets that I got.

Something new: Lots of Nestabilities, hodgepodge hardware (yes, it's retired, but it's pretty new to me), and baja breeze cardstock and ink.

Something borrowed: Jen's Sketch for You to Try from last Saturday, and Shelly's sample challenge card for its gorgeous ribbon - not that mine is anywhere close, but that's where the idea came from.

Something blue: the baja breeze and the blues in the paper collection.

Let's see, what else should I tell you about this card? I was having trouble pulling all the elements together until I decided to make the coppery paper the background, and then it clicked. I had great fun playing with my circle, oval and rectangle Nestabilities and the hardware. Is it too much? :) The spiral clip and ribbon were added at the end, when that corner just seemed too bare. I took a little liberty with Jen's sketch in not doing the embellishments quite like she showed, but I think this works here. I wanted a wider ribbon but nothing I had looked right, so I wrapped this brown organdy ribbon around about three times to give it a little more weight. I also did just a touch of chocolate chip sponging on some of the lighter panels. The sentiment comes from Bitty Birthday.

Tell me what you think - this was the first time in quite a while that I spent a couple hours making a card, and I'm pleased with the outcome!

Inspiration Challenge #30: Blueberry Tarts dress

Welcome back to my Wednesday IC! I've missed doing these and I think I have some fun ideas for the next few weeks. Today's challenge is this adorable dress from Chasing Fireflies. I can't afford the dress, but I can at least admire it and be inspired by it! I took my own photo because the one on the web site seemed a little small, and I wanted you to see the detail in the dress. As always you can click on my photo to make it bigger.

I decided to play some more with my Eastern Blooms set and the new In Colors: baja breeze, pacific point, kiwi kiss, and tangerine tango. The pacific point and tangerine are the two colors (so far) that I'm least likely to reach for, so I thought it would be good to challenge myself to use those. I also used today's SCS sketch challenge for my layout.

I considered a few different techniques I could use to replicate the subtle background of the dark blue fabric. I ended up inking the large flower branch first in Versamark and then in baja breeze so that I could do an emboss resist on baja breeze cardstock. I used clear EP to emboss and then used my brayer to cover the panel with pacific point ink. I rubbed over the panel with a paper towel to let the baja breeze flowers pop out.

Next I stamped the three-flower stamp in tangerine, pacific point, and baja breeze on the coordinating cardstocks. I cut out one of each design in the three different colors. For the stems I partially inked the large flower stamp from Live Your Dream using a blender pen and kiwi kiss reinker and stamped three times on a small kiwi panel. Then I mounted the cut-out flowers with dimensionals.

I pulled the striped paper out of the baja breeze designer paper pack for the righthand background layer. For the other layers I used tangerine cardstock since that color needed some repetition. I used a kiwi card base and the kiwi satin ribbon for finishing touches. The sentiment is from Sincere Salutations and is stamped in pacific point.

So tell me what you think - I confess the tangerine was hurting my eyes a little at first ;) but it's growing on me. I hope you'll join in the fun and play my challenge - if you upload your card at SCS, the keyword this week is DSIC30. Don't forget to leave me a comment with a link to your card so everyone can enjoy your creations!

Weekend mojo

I haven't done one of Julee's Mojo Monday sketches in a quite a while - I thought the past week's would be fun with some of my new stamps, plus it was her contest week (a bit delayed this month).

For this card I pulled out the new Eastern Blooms set. This was one of the first stamp sets I saw previews of and said, "I gotta have that!" I colored the flower branch with an old olive marker and baja breeze reinker and blender pen. It's stamped on very vanilla cardstock, then I added the sentiment below. I took the "kindness" stamp from Heard from the Heart and colored just the cursive word with my olive marker. I used the ticket corner punch and olive sponging for more interest, then layered on baja breeze and olive cardstock.

I made the small shape in Julee's sketch into a square, punching out baja breeze and olive squares with the 1 1/4" and 1 3/8" square punches. I tucked the square under the vanilla layer, as Julee shows in the sketch, but then added the flower on top with a pop-up glue dot. The baja breeze flower and olive "leaves" (actually cut-out flower petals) both come from the Eastern Blooms set. I used a brass vintage brad in the center of the flower.

To put it all together, I layered a panel of baja breeze paper from the Green Tea collection onto olive cardstock and a vanilla card, with 5/8" olive grosgrain ribbon going across the middle. These colors just look so pretty together - I am really enjoying the new In Colors!

Open house!

I think I'm still buzzing from the great time we had at the open house last night. It was really fun stamping with the three wonderful ladies who came. I thought I would share the projects we made, using lots of fun new SU stuff.

For the first card I loosely CASEd the card on p. 40 of the new catalog. This card uses the faux silk technique. I chose this because I think it's an easy technique that makes a simple card look elegant. The stamps are from the new 2-step set Flower Fancy, which is gorgeous and right up my alley. The flower is stamped first on plain white tissue paper with baja breeze and kiwi kiss (using blender pen and reinkers) and just a little not quite navy marker for the center of the flower, then the overlay is stamped (with the Stamp-a-ma-Jig) using kiwi kiss and not quite navy. I can't believe I dropped the stamp and got those two blue smudges - argh!! I didn't have time to redo it. After I glued it onto a very vanilla panel, I added a little piercing in the corners and a kiwi kiss layer underneath. The paper is from the Urban Garden collection with a sentiment from Thank You Kindly stamped in not quite navy. I just love this font! Lastly I added some of the kiwi kiss satin ribbon - this is double-sided with vanilla and is so pretty.

I used a totally different style for the second card, again loosely CASEd from the catalog (the "bloom" card on p. 86). I had to have the Crazy for Cupcakes set because I make a lot of birthday cards, and this one worked great for some paper piecing. The cupcake was stamped in chocolate chip four times: on riding hood red designer paper, pirouette pink cardstock, riding hood red cardstock, and whisper white cardstock. I used two-way glue to add glitter to the sprinkles and candle flame, then cut out the red and pink pieces and glued onto the white. Tip of the day: Doing the glitter before you assemble the whole cupcake keeps glitter from sticking to places where your glue may have strayed (I learned this the hard way). For accents I used the striped pirouette pink ribbon and a riding hood red button, which is tucked into a semicircle made with the slit punch. The sentiment from Hugs & Wishes was stamped in chocolate chip. To add interest to the edge of the pink card base, I used the scallop edge punch. Tip of the day #2: Score your card in the center before you punch the edge so you don't have to worry about where to fold, because the punch will take away some of the width of the front.

I wanted to make one project that wasn't a card - this wasn't my original idea but some last-minute changes had to be made. I wanted to use the Big Shot in some way to show what an awesome tool it is, so we made Christmas gift tags with the Top Note die. I used the die to cut out the curvy shape from vanilla cardstock and the red houndstooth print from the Holiday Treasures paper, which isn't pictured but is on the back of the tag. The poinsettia from Christ Is Born was generation stamped in riding hood red, then I sponged the edges. For the stamp and punch, which uses the Curly Punch bundle, I had to copy Dannie Graves's very cool technique for layering with this punch. She was so clever to come up with this! Finally I added a bow with the new riding hood red taffeta ribbon. We would have made matching gift bags if there had been ample time and supplies - I may still do this because I think it would be so cute in the houndstooth print.

I'm really excited to say that all three ladies who came last night are going to be part of my club in January! I'm just thrilled to be sharing this passion of mine with such great people. Thanks, y'all! :)

On Dasher, on Blitzen...

Hi there! Surprised to see me? You should be, LOL! I actually have everything pretty much ready for the open house tonight, so I had time to squeeze in the limited supply challenge for today. I know I have a whole lot of other things I probably should have been doing, but it felt really good to do a challenge card after so many days of... not doing one. I had intended to use Beate's weekend sketch challenge (welcome back, Beate!) but I think I strayed too far. I'll have to try it again next week!

The challenge was to use some unloved paper, stamps, and embellishments. I decided to knock out a Christmas card since I knew I had a ton of Christmas stamps that had rarely (or never) seen ink and have been sitting around since last fall. To fill the large circle on the sketch, I chose this collage stamp by Inkadinkado. To go with it I pulled out my huge stash of Christmas paper and settled on the Dasher collection from Basic Grey. I love that it has some of the new In Colors in it! I'm sure I'll be using it more this Christmas.

I first stamped the image with old olive on whisper white cardstock. Then using my circle Nestabilities and my new Big Shot that Stampin' Up! is now selling (woohoo!), I placed the die onto the image so that the entire circle would have some of the image and the "Merry Christmas" words would fit. I layered with baja breeze and kiwi kiss circles; I embossed the scalloped circle but I think I need to experiment some more with my "sandwich" because it's too faint. Once all the layers were together I sliced off the right edge. I also added a little sparkle to the image with my Sakura clear glitter pen.

For the background I chose two of the Dasher prints; I should have put the larger striped panel on the left, but I think it works better this way. Sometimes mistakes work out! When I went back to look at the sketch, I realized I'd forgotten the horizontal panel that crosses the circle. I didn't want to cover any of my circle, so I went with white organdy ribbon instead. I can't tell you the last time I used my organdy - since SU doesn't sell it I don't often reach for it. This is wide organdy folded in half so that it would take up just a little less room.

I put this all together on a 4 1/4" square olive card. I've never made this size before - it's cute! When I looked at it, it just seemed to need something in that upper left corner. I went to my embellishments to see if I had anything I'd been hoarding, and right on top were these A Muse twinkle stickers. They were the perfect thing!

So glad that I got a little time to play - now I'm really in the mood for some stampin' fun tonight! I'll post the projects we're making tonight sometime over the weekend, and hopefully be back with some more challenge cards also. Lots going on, as usual!

We're home

Whew, that was a long trip. Sorry that I've been MIA for the last part of it. No time for stamping because we kept moving from place to place and I never got my supplies out of the van!

It was a good trip. We enjoyed my father-in-law's wedding very much - his new wife is just lovely and we wish them much happiness.

The visits with my various family members were all wonderful, too. I have some photos but they are on our two laptops and not accessible to me right now, so they will have to come later.

The trip ended on a down note when Todd came down with a stomach bug yesterday. The kids and I had been sick right before we left Indy, so it seems like a long time in between, but I'm really hoping it's the same bug and not a new one. This is no time for me to get sick, and kids with stomach bugs are never any fun! Last night I wasn't sure we'd even make it home today, but Todd felt well enough to travel as a passenger by 10 this morning. It made for a long day for me having to do all the driving, but we survived.

Now I just need to finish getting ready for the open house on Friday and get caught up on everything that always crashes down on you when you come home from being gone for three weeks. So... I won't promise that you will see me back here before the weekend, but I will be posting soon because - my shipment of new catalog goodies is finally arriving tomorrow! Stay tuned!

Crisis!

I'm down to only scraps of chocolate chip cardstock! LOL. I'm glad that I only have a few more days of this because I can't go for long without using chocolate chip... plus, in less than 24 hours the new catalog will be live! Woohoo!

I'm feeling pretty awful this morning after eating too much at the state fair yesterday. So what's the best remedy? Stamping, of course! The featured stamper this week is Kim Teasdale, aka blondie090277. She does great work, and I chose this card for my CASE. I kept the river rock but used chocolate chip and some close to cocoa designer paper. I loved the layout and the piercing so I kept those the same, with slightly larger dimensions. I also reoriented the brads since I didn't have room horizontally.

Since this was a card without ribbon, I decided to make it masculine. I used the leaf stamps from Wonderful You, stamped in river rock and chocolate chip. I used the outline stamp to create the stamped backround on the large river rock panel. I layered everything on chocolate chip and sponged the edges with chocolate chip ink. The sentiment is from Sincere Salutations and is stamped on river rock designer paper. The two square panels are popped up on dimensionals, so this is a fairly heavy card - I love how it turned out, though!

Just hitting the highlights

I'm having an interesting time with my stamping these days - it's like my own limited supply challenge! I brought all my new In Colors, though, so I'm enjoying playing with them. I've also done some mass production for some orders I've had - I may not get those blogged, but we'll see!

Anyway, on to today's card. For the SCS inspiration challenge the piece was a beautiful Asian table setting - I looked at it and immediately thought of riding hood red and baja breeze. I wanted to use some Bella Rose paper so I added chocolate chip to my color combo. I used a chocolate chip marker pen and a blender pen and riding hood red reinker to color the flower image - oh heck, I'm totally blanking on the name of this set. Is it Stem Silhouettes? Yikes. Someone help me here! :) I stamped the image on baja breeze cardstock and layered with chocolate chip. The panel is two different Bella Rose papers, with another panel of white and a sentiment from Short & Sweet. I finished off with a baja breeze card base and some white taffeta ribbon. I should also add this layout was CASEd from a card on Pam Varnell's blog - sorry, I don't have a link, but I wanted to give her credit!

Can I just say, I am having so much trouble waiting out the new catalog release on Monday! I'll be ordering right away. I really can't wait to have more options for our new colors. It's going to be so much fun getting that UPS delivery!

Saying good-bye to a favorite...

I'm grieving a little bit this week - my favorite Live Your Dream stamp set did not make it into the new catalog coming out next week. I know I won't part with it, but I never got the opportunity to showcase it to customers, so I'm kind of sad about that. So I decided to make a card today using the large flower stamp from that set, for the SCS color and sketch challenges for the week.

The color challenge was to choose any of the retiring In Colors - something else I'm really going to miss! I do like the new ones a lot but it's been hard to not pick up the old ones recently. I didn't have all of the colors available so I chose groovy guava and river rock, plus very vanilla. I used two prints from the Ginger Blossom pack for the background panel and the triangles - which were kind of tricky but I like how they look. The flower was colored with reinkers and a blender pen and then stamped. I decided to go monochromatic with the layers and sponging, which I'm not sure I've ever done but I really like the look of the blocks of color. For embellishments I added three Martha Stewart half-back pearls and an oval-punched Hero Arts sentiment with a bit of guava ribbon.

I'm going to keep it short and sweet today - hope you're having a good one!

It feels good to be here again

Despite some technical difficulties I'm happy to have a card to post today! I actually got to play the SCS inspiration challenge in the midst of everything going on. The challenge was some very cute Etsy purses by Pink Lemonade, and some used some fabric with pink, kiwi and black - colors that I happened to have with me!

I decided to make a birthday card. I needed something quick and since I didn't have any designer paper I could use, I made my own. The flower from Think Happy Thoughts was stamped in pink pirouette, kiwi kiss and basic black on whisper white. I made the stripes with those same colors of cardstock cut in thin strips. To make the flowered panel the same size as the striped panel I layered it with all the same cardstock colors. Then I added the sentiment from the Perfect Day rub-ons on a black scallop punch, a bit of black and white dot ribbon, and that was it! Cute and fun, and really fast!