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!

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!

I meant what I said...

I really was going to make cards over the past week. I swear I was. But the germs that settled in on Saturday had other ideas. I've been coughing and feverish and generally feeling awful ever since. A couple times I tried to get going on an idea and I just had to put it aside and go back to bed. Finally I felt well enough tonight to actually try to finish a card. Here's what I came up with:

 

This is for three challenges: Color Throwdown (Pacific Point, So Saffron, Marina Mist, Lucky Limeade)

Stampin' Royalty (Trendy Triangles)

The Pink Elephant (Dots and Stripes)

The triangles immediately made me think of Pennant Parade - I've been thinking I need more birthday cards. The stamps I used to accent the pennants are from several different sets: A Fitting Occasion, Pretty Petites (retired Sale-a-Bration), Itty Bitty Bits (retired) as well as Pennant Parade. I used retired So Saffron and Pacific Point papers, along with the dot print in the current pattern pack in Marina Mist. The sentiment is by Taylored Expressions. I attached all the pennants to Pacific Point ribbon with dimensionals.

These fun colors and all the patterns are cheering me up - I hope you enjoy the card. I'm going to keep trying to stick to my challenge-playing goals so stay tuned and come back soon! Have a great weekend!

Happy birthday, Dad!

Today is my dad's 70th birthday - happy birthday to my dad! He's always been there for me for the past (almost) 42 years so I'm honored to celebrate his special day.

The timing for this card matched up perfectly with the latest sketch challenge from Seize the Birthday, which was a masculine card this week. I wanted to something a little techniquey (is that a word?) so I chose stamps that would work for reverse masking. This is my first time inking up the Papaya Collage set, which is great for a vintage look.

The center panel frame was stamped in Early Espresso, then I masked off the frame to stamp in the center. First I sponged some Crumb Cake ink over the opening, then I stamped the leaf (three generations) with Old Olive. The fussy cutting on the frame took a bit of time but was totally worth it over the background of retired DP and argyle-embossed olive card stock. The tickets use the new punch and stamp set That's the Ticket, with the sentiments coming from Up, Up & Away and Family Reunion. (See the little "70" written in for the ticket number?) Everything was sponged with espresso ink on the edges to give it even more vintage style. Finally I added a piece of Crumb Cake seam binding ribbon and an espresso button (linen thread looped through the buttonholes twice) to finish off this special card.

So that's it about the card - the only thing that would make this day better is if I were with my dad to help celebrate. Happy birthday - I will raise a glass in your honor today, Dad! Love 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!

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!

Island Night Rose

Good morning! It's time for another challenge with Our Creative Corner. Our hostess again this week is Sharon Wheet, and this week the challenge is to use navy and pink plus another color of your choice. I picked Island Indigo to go with Night of Navy (of course) and Regal Rose. I think these colors look pretty fabulous together!

The featured stamp image is from Embellished Events - a fun new stamp set in the catalog. I colored it with markers, punched with the 2 1/2" circle punch, and placed that on top of a scallop square die cut that I embossed with polka dots. I added some rhinestones in the corners and a sentiment from Create a Cupcake, punched with the decorative label punch. For the background I used some retired rose DP, two strips of indigo ribbon, and indigo card stock embossed with the stripe folder.

Make sure you stop by the OCC blog for this challenge - especially because we are welcoming our wonderful new DT members today! You'll love seeing their creations each week and playing along with all of us!

Twice in one day!

Guess I'm on a roll today. It's fun getting back to stamping! This is the second card for my neighbor. She wanted a birthday card for her sister incorporating two things: elephants and light blue. I hope this one will do the trick! I used a sketch challenge for this card as well - Stampin' Royalty has a fun one this week. Here's my card!

I'm all about my new stampin' stuff right now and this card includes several brand-new things. Along with Bashful Blue I chose two of the new In Colors: Midnight Muse and Gumball Green. These colors are really fun and I think I'm going to enjoy them a lot! The elephants (it was the only stamp I had to choose from) are the retired stamp Baby Steps, but the balloons are still available in the Patterned Party set. I've had this set since last year and this was its first time out of the box! I used some retired Bashful Blue DP and also a new green paper that's in the Christmas DP called Be of Good Cheer. I just love the little banner, made with the Itty Bitty Banners stamp set and matching die. It's too cute. I did use a border punch from MS and my nesties for the circle.

All right, this is going to be it for today - and I might not make it back to my stamps over the weekend - but I'm having too much fun to take another three months off. I promise to be back again soon!