Divine Diva Inspiration Challenge #26

To all our American readers, happy tax day! LOL! We will try not to "tax" you with the challenge this week. I loved the vibrant colors in these Herbal Waters from Sunsweet Naturals. I found these shown on the Lovely Package blog, which has become one of my favorite sources of inspiration.

I zeroed in on the first bottle, the lavender mint. I have hardly used my Herb Expressions set, so it seemed like the perfect time to pull out the lavender image. My layout (slightly tweaked) comes from a sketch blog that I visited for the first time, Sweet Stop Sketches. I'm sure I will be back to check them out again! If you are ever in need of a sketch, you can find lots to choose from on Allison Fillo's blog, Stampin' When I Can. She has daily postings of sketch challenges from all over. For my colors I kept the purple and green, and I decided to feature some of the colors that will be retiring with the new catalog: lavender lace, mellow moss and handsome hunter. I thought this was going to be a clean and simple card but I guess it didn't end up that way, LOL.

First I stamped the lavender image three times on naturals ivory cardstock, then colored it in with markers. With a dauber and mellow moss ink I added the "grass" underneath, then I used the color spritzer and mellow moss marker to add texture to the background. Finally I covered the whole panel with vanilla Smooch Spritz - a new product that will be available in the summer mini catalog. It's beautiful for a subtle sparkle - you might just be able to see it in the photo.

For the smaller panel I stamped the Cornish Heritage Farms Pretty Pattern backgrounder with lavender ink and cardstock. I added pearls from the Pretties Kit to the corners and a sentiment from the new set Watercolor Trio (also from the upcoming mini). The ribbon and bow use some champagne ribbon from my stash, a flower from the Blossom Party die (naturals ivory cardstock sponged with lavender ink), and a vintage button tied with hemp twine.

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

Anne

Chris

Donna

Julie

Kerri

And for something special, this week we have a guest designer: my fellow OCC team member Sarah Gough! Her work is amazing so stop by her blog to be wowed!

Because I was ill last week I forgot about the card kit drawing. I am so sorry about that. In light of that, I'm going to extend the prize to count for this challenge as well, and I will pick a winner on Thursday, April 29.

The keyword for this week's upload is DDIC26. We hope you will come and play along with us - we always love to see what you create! Our next challenge will be on May 6 so be sure to come back then!

To Be Loved

This week over at Our Creative Corner our awesome hostess, Linda Coughlin, gave us a challenge that - at least for me - lived up to its name. We are supposed to find something we've had for a long time but have never used, or haven't used in a good while. The challenge in this for me goes back to my efforts to mostly use Stampin' Up! products on my blog. I struggled with knowing what to do because I just don't have much SU stuff that's old at all, or old and unused. Once I gave myself permission to use some other products, this card came together very quickly.

The whole card started with the papers. I confess, I am a paper hoarder. I have SO much. I'm really trying to make use of what I have, but these Daisy D's papers were sitting around unloved, even though I always thought they were gorgeous. Since I love the fact that SU's products always coordinate, when I use other stuff I find myself figuring out tricky ways to get around not having an ink that matches as well as I'd like. In this case I used American Crafts chestnut embossing powder and Versamark. (The cardstock is by Bazzill.)

I also found some stamps from Cornish Heritage Farms that had been terribly neglected. I stamped the Sophisticated Swirl backgrounder directly onto one of the papers, then embossed it and used it for the background. The sentiment is a stamp that I had to have when I saw it - so why haven't I used it? It's a wonderful quote. I embossed it onto another of the patterned papers and then cut it out with Nestabilities. I created the layers behind the sentiment by cutting out a couple more of the same shape then cutting them apart and fitting them behind the sentiment.

Originally I thought I would stamp an image and maybe color with Copics, but I didn't even get that far. I realized that one of the papers had these gorgeous circles that would look stunning cut out. For the center I used a kiwi kiss button and some skinny satin ribbon that was in my stash. When I put the card together, I did something that I'm not sure I've ever tried before - putting the sentiment under another layer. I didn't plan it out that way - it's just the way the pieces fit together the best, but I love the result. It allows the circle to stand out but somehow features the sentiment at the same time. I decided not to add anything else to my card - and in this case I think that was exactly the right call!

I hope you will dig through your stuff and find something old that calls out to you for this challenge. I enjoyed doing it, once I figured out what I wanted to do! And don't forget to visit the OCC blog to check out what other wonderful creations our team came up with this week.

Porcelain "Turtle Doves"

It's time for another challenge from Our Creative Corner, and we have a new hostess for December: Jenny Gropp. We have great challenges lined up for you this month, starting with today's, which is to make a card or project inspired by anything in the "Twelve Days of Christmas" carol.

Here I am with spring colors again... what can I say? I'm in denial that winter hasn't truly started yet and spring is a long way off! I wasn't coming up with the perfect stamp, so I decided that two turtle doves might be my best bet. I know these aren't doves... but at least there are two of them! The stamp is by Cornish Heritage Farms and it's called Gum Tree Swallows, so I guess that's what they must be. LOL.

I knew I wanted to do my birds in chocolate chip, but beyond that I was kind of stuck. So I did the same thing as last week - started browsing through the stacks of DP that are out in my studio right now. This time I used Basic Grey's Porcelain collection. The "lace" was cut from one piece of DP, the brown dotted strip is another pattern of paper that I ran through the crimper, and the green floral is my third pattern. Then I stamped the birds on the nontextured side of pink Bazzill cardstock (all cardstock here is by Bazzill) and cut with Nestabilities. The sentiment is from Teeny Tiny Wishes and was stamped on the green floral paper and then punched with the word window and modern label punches.

For embellishments I used three pale green rhinestones from K&Co. (It's hard to see in the photo but they match the green paper really well.) I also wanted some ribbon but didn't really have anything that was the right color, so I took some white satin Offray ribbon and colored it with a Copic marker. It worked beautifully - just be aware that the marker made the ribbon quite stiff, but that actually worked fine for me because I was able to get a nice, crisp bow out of it.

That's it from me - stop by the OCC to check out everyone's lovely creations. And if you're like me, you'll be singing "The Twelve Days of Christmas" all weekend. Enjoy!

Love Birds - a sketch challenge, sort of

Today I've been working on a card for a custom order in my Etsy shop. As I was planning my card, I was hunting around for a sketch challenge to do, and none of the ones I was finding fit what I needed to make. So I turned to my own master sketch file, which is made up of sketches I've saved from cards I've seen elsewhere. This is not my design, but unfortunately I have no idea whose layout it originally was. It was a card I saw in a magazine using PTI's Take a Bough set. I'd love to credit the original designer if I knew who she was!

I thought it might be fun to post the layout so that others could play along with this sketch. I could see so many possibilities from this one. If you do make a card using this sketch, link back here so I can see! I'm not too good at designing my own sketches so don't expect this to be a regular feature, LOL. It's just for fun for today, and maybe I'll decide to do another at some point - who knows?

OK, on to my card. I stamped the Love Birds (by Cornish Heritage Farms) with pacific point on PTI white cardstock, then paper pieced them with Making Memories Poolside Paperie paper. I used other prints from the collection for the other panels of the sketch, with Bazzill cardstock for layers. I made the sentiment on the computer with the words requested by the customer. I punched it out with the curly label punch, then used the Movers & Shapers die to cut the layers. The largest label was cut out from the window by trimming on the dashed line. I used the Finial Press embossing folder to make my dark blue layer, added a photo corner punch in the upper right, then adhered two silver brads in the opposite corners.

I just noticed that I messed up the sketch just a bit, in my placement of the embossed panel - but I think it's a good tweak. I hope you'll try out this fun sketch!