Raspberry Preserves

Hi again and happy Saturday! I'm still catching up on my freelance work and keeping crafting on the back burner for a couple more weeks, but I managed to make a card for today's challenge with Our Creative Corner. Our challenge today comes from Liliana Inguanti: use some form of woodgrain and at least one button. Instead of going for new stuff I pulled out one of my favorite sets from last fall, Perfectly Preserved.

The woodgrain paper (retired Christmas DP) was my starting point. I already had Early Espresso, Lucky Limeade and Raspberry Ripple out on my table and thought they would be fun colors together. The button is actually Cherry Cobbler, but the nice thing about our buttons is they can usually work with more than their "official" color. I tied some limeade baker's twine through the button and put it in the center of the thank you sentiment from A Fitting Occasion. Clean and simple works for me today... I hope you like it!

I know the design team has wonderful projects to show you so make sure you go check out everyone's fabulous work. Then please come play along with us - our challenges wouldn't be the same without you!

Warmest Wishes in White

Busy, busy week.... not much time for crafting while I'm working on a couple freelance projects for the next few weeks, but I'm doing my best to keep up with my Saturday challenge commitments. So with that here is my card for this week's fun challenge at Our Creative Corner. Our hostess for the next two weeks is the lovely Liliana Inguanti, and for this week our challenge is to make a white card with a decorative edge. This is what I came up with, using the Mojo Monday sketch.

I wanted to try white-on-white embossing with the Elements of Style flower stamp. It may be hard to see it so here's a close-up:

OK, now can you see it? It probably shows up better in person. I made the frilly bow with white taffeta ribbon and glue dots, accenting the embossed die-cut. I always like to use lots of texture when I'm making a white card, so I embossed the background with the fancy fan and lacy brocade folders - just for fun, on the lacy brocade I put the embossed side down. Next I added a panel with the eyelet border punch (retired) and I cut the card base with one of the border framelit dies. Yes, you can cut both layers of the card at the same time! I accented the scallops with pearls and added the sentiment from Blooming with Kindness, which I stamped in Early Espresso.

This is a great challenge so we hope you'll play along - and check out all the gorgeous ideas the OCC team has for working with white this week!

Shabby Banner

Hello and happy Saturday! I'm back as promised to show you the second card made at my club this weekend. It's also doing double duty with the challenge at Our Creative Corner - I'm a busy working mom so of course I'm all about the multitasking! The challenge this week, hosted again by Sharon Wheet, is to make something in a shabby chic style. I knew I wanted to feature some new products from the spring catalog that fit perfectly.

There are a few new goodies making their debut with this card. I featured the Hearts a Flutter stamp set and matching dies for my banner. The colors come from the Twitterpated DP: Baja Breeze, Riding Hood Red, Island Indigo, and retired colors Pear Pizazz and Blushing Bride. (Retired colors in a current DP? Well, I still got 'em and love 'em so I'm gonna use 'em!) It's hard to see but I attached the banner to a red card stock piece cut out with one of our large framelit dies. On top I added a strip of the new lace tape - this is cool stuff since it's already sticky and you don't have to punch all those little cutouts! I decorated my banner with punched flowers and leaves, pearls, a (retired) button with indigo baker's twine, and the new little butterfly punch - and can you see behind the butterfly is the new mini curly label punch? Too stinking cute! Now, look closely and you can see one more new product at the bottom of the card. It's the new Simply Scored embossing plate, which is really fabulous. I added a sentiment from Curly Cute. I know I didn't get too shabby here - I didn't want to sponge it but I did distress the edges of the paper with my rubber scissors. So I guess it's a little less shabby and a little more chic? I don't know, but I like how it turned out.

That's it from me today - be sure you visit the other OCC team members' blogs to see their wonderful projects, and we hope you'll play along with us this week! Enjoy

Chalk it up

Hi y'all! Well, I haven't gotten around to much stamping this week, but I do have my January club this weekend so I thought I would try to show you the projects we'll be making. First up is a card using the chalkboard technique that's recently been spotlighted by Betsy Veldman and Becky Roberts. The techniques are basically the same, except Betsy takes the extra step of shadow stamping behind her embossed image. Since I'm working with my club and we don't have a lot of time to wait for ink to dry, I followed Becky's take on the technique.

 

I made my collage of stamps on the largest clear block we have so I could ink and stamp them all at once. The various stamps are from six different sets: Bring on the Cake, Friendly Phrases, A Fitting Occasion, Patterned Occasions (an upcoming Sale-a-Bration set), and from the new spring catalog, Make a Wish and Ciao, Baby! The technique is pretty simple: rub your embossing buddy over black card stock, then stamp and emboss with white EP. (I used Versamark for my stamping because it seemed to come out better for the solid images than white craft ink did. It's not perfect, but I'm going with it anyway.) Next take a soft cloth (I used an old handkerchief) to rub some white craft ink over the embossing - it looks like the eraser residue on a chalkboard. Then outline the edge with white colored pencil. I wanted to bring in a little color so I added some Melon Mambo punches, rhinestones, a strip of Melon Mambo DP, and a 1/8" white bow.

 

With all the stamps mounted on a single block, this becomes a pretty quick card. Hopefully my stampers will have fun with it, and I hope you enjoyed it as well. Thanks for visiting and see you again on Saturday!

A new year, a new start....

Hello, friends! I know it's been a long time. Unfortunately the situation with Todd's case hasn't really gone very far, but we remain hopeful. While we're waiting for everything to sort itself out, I decided that what would really be helpful to me is doing the things I love - and that means I'm trying to get back to stamping and playing challenges. It's been an awfully long time and I feel very rusty, but I'm diving in by rejoining the team at Our Creative Corner. (I've missed those awesome ladies and I'm so grateful to them for letting me take time off as I needed it!)

Anyway, the challenge that kicks off the new year is a lovely one from Sharon Wheet: aqua and pink plus a flower of any kind. Here in Massachusetts we have snow on the ground, so it kind of cheered me up looking at those springy colors. I decided to open up some new stuff from the spring catalog that just went live yesterday. Here's what I came up with, and I combined with a couple other challenges: Freshly Made Sketches and CAS-ual Fridays (make a thank you card).

I know you can spot the new stamps: it's a gorgeous set called Secret Garden and it comes with matching dies. LOVE! I wanted to try my hand at some watercoloring with a blender pen. The largest flower was colored with Pretty in Pink and Melon Mambo; the small pink flower with Pink Pirouette and Pretty in Pink (with Melon Mambo in the center); and the aqua is Pool Party (with Baja Breeze in the center). I used black Stazon for stamping and you'll definitely want to use watercolor paper with this technique. The framelits cut it out beautifully. The background is Pool Party, with the top embossed using the Elegant Lines folder. The sentiment comes from Perfectly Penned, and the middle strip is crochet trim adhered to Pink Pirouette textured card stock with a piece of retired melon ribbon. The bottom corner seemed to need a little something, so I added some pearls to finish it off. I think pretty and elegant can still be CAS - what do you think?

It feels great to be back and I hope to be seeing you more often. I'm not going to go crazy and post every day or anything. ;) But I'm aiming for more often than just the OCC challenges on Saturday. It might be tough to get back into the stamping groove so wish me luck! And be sure you check out the beautiful samples from the rest of the OCC team - they are gorgeous as always! We hope you'll play along with us too. Happy new year - thanks for visiting and see you again soon!