Vanilla Toile

Welcome to another Saturday at Our Creative Corner! This is the final week for Diane Gilbert's October challenges, and this week she brought us a fabuous inspiration challenge - which you know I loved, of course! This gorgeous room comes from Pottery Barn.

I looked at the photo and immediately thought of toile, so I knew I wanted to use the Bella Toile BG stamp. I inked it with Crumb Cake and stamped it on Very Vanilla card stock. Behind that I used a layer of So Saffron designer paper. I also wanted to pull in the stripes from the photo, so I chose some striped Crumb Cake paper for the center panel. To get a really striking look I used black for my layers - I couldn't really tell what the dark accents in the photo were, so I just went for it and I love the result. In the center I added an image from Flower Fancy, which rather than putting it onto a panel, I just cut it out and adhered it right to the card. I added pearls to my scalloped panel for a little more elegance, leaving room for the sentiment from Occasional Quotes.

Don't forget to stop by the OCC blog to see what all the other team members have come up with for the challenge, and then play along with us! Hope you are having a great weekend!

Halloween Challenge(d)

For this week's challenge at Our Creative Corner our fab hostess, Diane Gilbert, gave us a fun color combo that's perfect for Halloween: Certainly Celery, Rich Razzleberry, Pumpkin Pie and Early Espresso (and Diane put white in there as well - but I just couldn't make that work!). Well, I'll say that I like the card I ended up with, but it was quite an odyssey getting here! I had another card almost done and I tossed it aside and started over completely. But anyway...

The stamp set I used is called House of Haunts. I stamped the haunted house twice, on the razzleberry and pumpkin card stock, then I cut around the top of the house to put the orange moon behind it. For background panels I used espresso and pumpkin designer papers, and the sentiment (from the same stamp set) was punched and mounted on a label from the die set Lots of Tags. I sponged all the edges with espresso ink and added three celery brads to finish it off.

That's it from me - now be sure you see what else the team has created for this challenge, and we hope you'll play along as well!

Divine Diva Inspiration Challenge #38

It's time for another inspiration challenge and in honor of fall, we have a great blog post from Hostess with the Mostess. There are lots of great fall-themed photos so choose your favorite as your inspiration and come create with us! I just loved the cake shown here so that's what I picked.

I started out by making the embossed panel with the Vintage Wallpaper folder and Chocolate Chip card stock. The other colors I chose were So Saffron, Wild Wasabi and Tangerine Tango, which I used to watercolor the image from the retired hostess set Infinite Goodness. First I laid down a background of a saffron wash, then watercolored on top of that with the other colors. The wasabi panel features the retired Watercolor Vine wheel, and for the ribbon I really wanted tangerine, so I colored taffeta ribbon with a tangerine marker then layered it onto 5/8" Chocolate Chip grosgrain ribbon and topped it off with a button. The sentiment comes from the hostess set Afterthoughts.

Be sure to check out the cards made by all the Divine Divas for this challenge!

Anne

Chris

Donna

Julie

Kerri

Hope you are inspired to come and play along. Just leave a comment here with a link to your card. We can't wait to see what you create! The keyword for uploading on online forums will be DDIC38. Have fun and look for the next challenge on November 4!

Thanks a bunch

Sorry I disappeared for a while! I've gotten behind on an editing project and I'm spending time trying to catch up. I do have a club meeting this week, though, so I thought I'd take a minute to share one of the cards we'll be making. I CASEd the flower pot from Dawn Olchefske and used the sketch from the Paper Players (flipped) for my layout.

These flowers and the pot are completely made from the Big Bold Cupcake dies. Isn't it just an adorable idea? I used three of the In Colors together: Poppy Parade, Peach Parfait and Pear Pizzazz. I stamped the pot with the Dot, Dot, Dot single stamp, and if that wasn't enough dots, I also used the big dot paper from the hostess pack. The sentiment is from A Word for You, and I added some paper piercing and peach ribbon as accents.

I hope you enjoyed this card - I think it made me feel a little more cheery on a day when it's pretty chilly out. Thanks so much for stopping by!

Extended card kit offer

I've decided to offer the October Card Kit of the Month for one more week. Go to this post and place your order by Friday, October 22. You can also order the Just Believe stamp set at a 15% discount if you contact me after you purchase your kit. Don't delay - act today! :)

Lighthouse Birthday

It's time for another challenge over at Our Creative Corner, and this week our hostess, Diane Gilbert, has a fun sketch challenge for us. I decided to do a masculine card with the stamp set Uncharted Territory. I used colors from another challenge blog, Hand Stamped Sentiments. The combination is a cool one: Real Red, Pear Pizazz, Pacific Point and Early Espresso.

I stamped the lighthouse on white card stock in espresso, then highlighted just a few areas of the image with markers. Since I was doing a masculine card, I used torn edges instead of a border punch, and I picked twill tape instead of ribbon, adding a red button (retired) tied with hemp twine for an accent. The background is from the In Color hostess paper pack and the sentiment from the hostess set Afterthoughts. I couldn't decide which color(s) to use on the sentiment, so I used three! I simply colored the top half of the "birthday" with the red marker and then filled in the bottom with the blue. The curly label punch and Movers & Shapers gave me my fun sentiment shape.

You'll want to be sure to visit the OCC blog and see everyone's creations for the challenge - and then play with the sketch yourself and share your creativity with us!

Divine Diva Inspiration Challenge #37

Welcome to this week's challenge! We had an extra Thursday in September so it feels like we've been gone a looooong time. This week we have these elegant Claus Porto Classico soaps for your inspiration pleasure. We hope you'll play along with us!

For my card I pulled out the colors Concord Crush, Basic Gray, So Saffron and Old Olive. I thought the flower in Friends 24-7 was the perfect image for this challenge. To set it off I made a border with the damask image and embossed saffron card stock with the square lattice folder, then added a panel of retired olive paper. I used gray satin ribbon to set off the two background panels and Nestabilities to cut the smaller panels. I kept it pretty simple and just added a sentiment from Short & Sweet with an olive button and a pearl in the center.

Be sure to check out the cards made by all the Divine Divas for this challenge!

Anne

Chris

Donna

Julie

Kerri

Hope you are inspired to come and play along. Just leave a comment here with a link to your card. We can't wait to see what you create! The keyword for uploading on online forums will be DDIC37. Have fun and look for the next challenge on October 21!

Kindness and Gratitude

It's time for a new month of challenges at Our Creative Corner. Our hostess this month is the fabulous Diane Gilbert! She's starting us off with a color challenge: Cajun Craze, More Mustard, Old Olive, Early Espresso and Very Vanilla. Perfect for those fall cards!

This was the technique card at my club last month. I saw this image from the Day of Gratitude stamp set used with a cool technique that was definitely a "wow" with my club. Meg Loven called it the custom felt pad technique. It's basically this: take a piece of plain-old felt. (I folded mine over so it was three layers thick to keep the ink from soaking through onto my work surface.) Trace the outline of your stamp onto the felt with a pen, then fill the whole outlined area with classic ink reinkers. This will stay wet enough that you can stamp several times without reinking it. It's not going to look precise but it's very cool - try it and see!

The rest of the card was fairly simple. I used a mustard sheet from the Autumn Spice specialty paper and layered several things on it. First I stamped the En Francais background - I know you can't see it, but it's there! Next I used generation stamping with the leaf image from the stamp set. Finally I sponged lots of mustard ink on it - a little bit over the whole panel and even more on the edges. The olive ribbon was knotted with linen thread, then if you cut the thread long enough you can tie the ends through the button and it's all nice and neat. A sentiment from Occasional Quotes finished it off.

I know you'll want to visit the OCC blog and see what the rest of the team created with these fun fall colors. Please come and play along - we couldn't do it without you!

Card Kit of the Month is back!

After a long summer hiatus I'm bringing back the Card Kit of the Month. October's kit features the fabulous stamp set Just Believe. 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 Just Believe stamp set at 15% off retail price (tax and shipping not included).

Just Believe wood-mount stamp set regularly $33.95, with purchase of kit $28.86
Just Believe clear-mount stamp set regularly $25.95, with purchase of kit $22.06

The rest of the products used in making these cards are given in the list below. If you have all of these then you’re ready to go, but just let me know if you’d like to order any of these items. You can also use the kit to make your cards with the supplies you already own.

Please get your orders to me by October 15. You will receive your kit by the end of the month.

Lori Rider

loririder (at) verizon (dot) net
978-486-8102
divastamper.blogspot.com

Local customers click here to add the kit to your cart:

If you need to receive your kit by mail, click on the "Add to Cart" button below. U.S. customers only, please. Let me know if you encounter any problems with the ordering process.





Additional Product List

• Marina Mist Classic Ink ($5.95; Marina Mist Stampin’ Write marker or another color of ink can be substituted)
• Early Espresso Classic Ink ($5.95)
• Crumb Cake Classic Ink ($5.95)
• Soft Suede Classic Ink ($5.95)
• Early Espresso Stampin’ Write marker ($3.50)
• 1 3/4” circle punch ($16.95)
• 2 3/8” scallop circle punch ($16.95)
• Decorative label punch ($16.95)
• Sponge dauber (12 for $10.95) or paper towel
• Paper snips ($9.95)
• Bone folder ($6.95)
• Stamp-a-Ma-Jig ($11.95; optional)
• Color spritzer tool ($12.95; optional)
• Stampin’ Dimensionals ($3.95)
• SNAIL adhesive ($6.95)
• Mini glue dots ($3.95)
• Tombow Multipurpose Liquid Glue ($3.95)

Any questions? Contact me at any time. Thanks so much for your support of the Card Kit of the Month program!