Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Coastal Bermuda Party

That sounds like a party I'd like to be at right now! There is so much snow on the ground and I'm so tired of it. Maybe that's how I ended up with this monochromatic color scheme of Pool Party, Coastal Cabana and Bermuda Bay (with Early Espresso). I took the layout from Freshly Made Sketches and ran with it - maybe I ran a bit too far, but I like how it turned out.


I made the background first: strips of card stock that measure 1 1/2" x 3 1/4". Before stamping the collage with the Summer Silhouettes stamp set, I taped the three strips together from dark to light. After I stamped I ran the panels through the Big Shot with the houndstooth embossing folder. The decorative strip was stamped twice to make it long enough to go across the whole card. I chose a flower from Secret Garden, which I stamped on all three colors of card stock then fussy cut into layers. The Little Leaves sizzlit die seemed to go perfectly with the background, then I added a sentiment from Banner Greetings to finish everything off.

That's about it for today! One more project to go and I'll be ready for club. Hopefully I'll have time to share that project with you later this week. Have a wonderful day!

Monday, February 24, 2014

Trying to get the feeling back again...

I know it's been a long time since I posted. We've had illness, travel, busy schedules, snowstorms, house renovation plans... you name it, it's been keeping me from stamping. And to be honest, my mojo has just felt like it took a long vacation and hasn't come back yet. But this weekend I have my club so I need to find some inspiration. I hope it'll be the start of better times, but the busy-ness isn't going to go away and my craft supplies may have to take a back seat in the coming weeks... or probably months...

When I have trouble getting started on a project I turn to online inspiration - and I've wanted to CASE this card by Amy O'Neill for a while. I used the Stampin' Royalty color challenge and the Paper Players sketch challenge. This also qualifies for the Splitcoast CAS challenge to use a colored (non-neutral) card base.



First I stamped Off the Grid with Crushed Curry ink on the card stock base. Then I added banners of Real Red DSP and white card stock I stamped in Island Indigo with the Positively Chevron stamp. The sentiment (in black) comes from the set Four You. The finishing touches: three stars and three black candy dots, and finally a tiny strip of black card stock that seems to anchor the bottom of the card. Tip of the day: If you run out of black candy dots, like I did, just cover another color with a Sharpie. I'm sure this would work with other Sharpie colors too.

I think maybe there's a spark of creativity coming back to me... I enjoyed making this card, even though I feel very rusty. Hope you like it and thanks for visiting!