Happy birthday, Mom!

My wonderful mom had a birthday yesterday so I had to wait until she received it (which I hope is today!) to post her card. I made this with two SCS challenges: Featured Stamper and Inspiration. The card I chose to CASE for the featured stamper Linda is this one. From the Horchow site for inspiration, I picked this bedding - classic and elegant, and both my mom and I love blue, so it was perfect! I'm also entering in Dynamic Duos for this week's challenge.

Here is my card:

 

When I saw the inspiration photo I immediately thought of this retired DSP in Midnight Muse, which I used for the large scallop circle. The flower image from You Are Loved (also retired) seemed to coordinate perfectly. Based on the inspiration piece and the DSP I chose, I put the Midnight Muse with Crumb Cake and Very Vanilla. I used the polka dot and finial press embossing folders for texture, and I pulled the stripes from the inspiration photo in with the punched pansy. I added a Crumb Cake button and Midnight Muse dahlia with a linen thread bow. The sentiment comes from PTI's Ruby Rose set.

Happy birthday Mom - I love you and I hope you love your card!

Pop of Pink Pickup

Ah, the weekend... thank goodness! Unfortunately I'm still fighting illness - maybe a new cold or a continuation of the old one, I'm not sure. But life goes on... I felt like stamping this morning so I created this card for the Fusion Card Challenge and Friday Mashup (fussy cutting).



 

The Fusion challenge includes an inspiration photo and a sketch, and you can use one or both for your creation. I *mostly* used the sketch, except I changed the banners. I'm normally a follow-the-rules kind of girl, but sometimes I just have to stray if my inner artist thinks it's the right thing to do! This image from PTI's Tremendous Treats Birthday set was perfect for the inspiration photo. I tried something new and used an N2 Copic marker to shade the white truck. I took a cue from the photo and chose several graphic patterns from the Neutrals paper pack in white, gray and black, then I pulled in the pop of pink with Melon Mambo Core'dinations card stock. The sentiment is by Great Impressions and the frame die is by Sizzix (non-SU).

I hope everyone has a great weekend - and I hope I can finally kick these germs to the curb soon! Thanks for visiting!

Divine Diva Inspiration Challenge #18

Here's our second holiday-inspired challenge for the month. This time around we're going to be inspired by these beautiful soaps by Mistral. (They were available at Anthropologie when I first saw them but they are sold out now - I guess everyone else loved them, too!) I just couldn't choose between the green and the red, so I'm showing you both. Feel free to use one or both colors in whatever way inspires you!

I decided to go with the green for my clean and simple Christmas card. This was one of those (rare) times when I imagined the card in my head and it turned out almost exactly as I pictured it. First I colored the image from Autumn Days with chocolate chip and garden green markers, stamped on whisper white, and cut and embossed with Nestabilities. The white background was embossed with the Perfect Details texture plate. Next I layered a strip of garden green paper from a retired hostess patterns pack. The sentiment is by Papertrey Ink. For embellishments I used Martha Stewart pearls and some of the new chocolate chip satin ribbon that will be available in the upcoming Occasions Mini. It's wonderful ribbon, and it's going to come in a lot of your favorite colors - you're going to want them all, just like I do!

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

Anne

Chris

Donna

Julie

Kerri

(Keri is sitting out our December challenges.)

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 SCS will be DDIC18. Have fun and look for the next challenge in the new year - on January 7, 2010! Happy holidays to everyone from the Divine Divas!

Bloom for a Great Friend, Part 2

I'm back today to show you the journal I made that goes along with this card. Although I still used the SEI Mimosa paper and the In Bloom stamp set from Papertrey Ink, I did some things a little differently for the journal. This is the larger art journal from SU, which covers with paper very nicely, thanks to the spiral punch.

My Etsy customer requested that I use some embossing, so I embossed the flower and leaves right onto two of the solid Mimosa papers. The chipboard tag (which is SU) was covered with another dot paper, then I embossed the swirl from Baroque Motifs with Ranger polysparkle EP. It's subtle but adds a nice touch over the glittery background papers. I punched a hole in the tag with my Crop-a-Dile, tied some old olive (Elementary Ribbon Originals) ribbon through it, and adhered the flower with pop-up glue dots.

The sentiment from Define Your Life was also requested by my customer. I stamped with dusty durango and layered it behind a Maya Road chipboard oval frame covered with more solid Mimosa paper. I trimmed it down and sanded the edges, then used two layers of pop-up glue dots to adhere it to the cover. It seemed like it needed a bit more something, so I added these teeny little Making Memories adhesive pearls and put three larger pearls up top for balance.

So, how did I do for my first altered journal? I think it turned out quite nicely, and I also think this won't be the last of these that I do. In fact, when I ordered this one I got two extras just in case I wanted to make more. It's been really fun!

Bloom for a Great Friend

Wow, I guess it's been a few days... I have a lot on my plate from now until mid-August so my apologies in advance if I'm not around much. It's one of those times when some things I'd rather be doing (like making cards!) have to be set aside.

I did need to make a couple cards this week, though. This one is for an Etsy customer - I'll be making an altered journal to go with it (my first!) as soon as the journal arrives from SU. So I'll have that to show you in a few days. For now here is the card, which also uses today's sketch challenge.

My customer had chosen this paper (SEI's Mimosa) so I knew I was working with that. I started out making the background and the circle, using crushed curry for the card base and dusty durango for the layers. Next I had to decide what image(s) to use. Although I liked the curry and durango cardstock with these papers, the inks didn't look quite right, so I decided to use Copics with this flower from Papertrey Ink's In Bloom set.

I stamped with Memento tuxedo black and then sat down with my Copics to try to match colors to the papers... If anyone has run across any tips for getting your Copics to match patterned paper, could you pass them along to me? ;) It wasn't easy, and in the end the flower and leaves turned out darker than I wanted. But I hope it works OK. I cut out the flower with the paper tole technique, which is really easy with this image and looks so cool. Since I had a little glitter on one of my papers, I added some Sakura glitter pen to the images.

The sentiment was also requested by my customer - I stamped it in dusty durango, cut it out, and mounted on dimensionals. Then I just had to decide what embellishments to use. Again, I tried a few things but ended up with this old olive ribbon from the Elementary Ribbon Originals and a Bo Bunny brad. Tip of the day: Using your craft & rubber scissors you can cut off the back of a brad and then just attach it with a glue dot. No need to puncture your ribbon! Isn't that a great tip? I wish I could remember where I read it!

Well, I'm off to work on my second (and probably last) card of the week: my sample for tomorrow's Divine Diva Inspiration Challenge. We've had a couple weeks off so I'm excited to have a challenge for you in the morning! Hope you'll come back then, and thanks for stopping by!