For a very special friend

A dear friend of mine will soon be going to Taiwan to pick up her new adopted daughter. This little baby has been long awaited and prayed and hoped for by so many. We can't believe that so soon she will be here with her new family! My friend asked if I would make a box and card for her birthmother gift. This sweet baby's name in Chinese means Iris, so that will be her American name as well. The box and card I made are a tribute to this beautiful little girl.

I made the box first. It's a slightly modified 2-5-7-10 box; I made the front and back 3.5" inches wide instead of 3" (and thus the sides are 1.5" instead of 2"). I made the box out of SU's gold cardstock, then I stamped the Baroque Motifs swirl in Versamark and embossed with Ranger gold EP. The ribbon is (I think?) A Muse. The iris stamp is by Hanko Designs. I colored the stamp with old olive marker and a purple Tombow marker, then stamped on very vanilla and colored in the flower with a lighter Tombow purple. I cut out and embossed with Nestabilities, using a larger scalloped oval so I could paper pierce the scallops. The purple is Bazzill cardstock. Finally I added some Martha Stewart half pearls to the scalloped edge of the box flap.

The card was made with all the same materials, using the layout (flipped) for the Weekend Sketch Challenge. I put the panels onto a textured vanilla card that measures 5x7. Here is a close-up of the iris.

I really hope that my friend loves this - it was made with a heart full of love for this baby that none of us has even met yet!

Doing a little housecleaning...

I decided to take some time today and spiff up my blog a bit. I've started adding labels - how did I not realize that this was so incredibly easy? At least it's easy if you add them as you post... going back over 300+ posts and adding the labels is not *quite* as easy.

I've also added a blog roll - check out these ladies' gorgeous creations!

And stay tuned for news on the inspiration challenge. I'm hoping it'll start back up soon. Things may be changing a bit but I won't tell you now - you'll just have to check back for details!

Another crazy week

I'm sorry that once again I've gone through most of the week without posting. I would love it if my schedule would just calm down a little... I am wrapping up an editing project over the weekend and I hope all that is on the horizon is more time to stamp!

Today I managed to squeeze in a challenge card. The limited supply challenge was to make a card with Soft Subtles colors and a spring flower. I decided to use blush blossom and sage shadow, and the Live Your Dream flower that I still love so much. But I did cheat a little - isn't everything better with chocolate? Chocolate chip, that is. It just needed something dark to ground the soft colors.

I started out by inking the flowers with the blush blossom pad and then wiping the ink off the stems with a baby wipe. I tried using the blush marker but it was just too pale. The chocolate chip covers the centers so you don't have to worry about that, and by the time you are ready to ink the stems they are dry. I used the side of the chocolate chip marker's brush tip to edge the flower petals. Then I stamped on very vanilla and cut and embossed with long rectangle Nestabilities. I decided to use textured cardstock on this card and layered the flowers on chocolate chip. (All the edges are sponged with chocolate chip on this card.)

The background is made up of a panel from the Cosmo Cricket Everafter collection - (have you seen these? Truly to die for. And they match SU colors quite well - this paper looks nice with sage shadow.) and a blush blossom cardstock panel embossed with the pretty pattern Cuttlebug folder. I covered the join with chocolate chip taffeta ribbon and then layered it onto chocolate chip cardstock and a top-folded vanilla card base. For another embellishment I had to use the vanilla half pearls from the Pretties Kit. I've been hoarding them a little but they seemed perfect here. The sentiment is from the new mini catalog set Ovals All, which works so well with the new scallop oval punch. To be able to layer the large oval punch makes me blissfully happy!

I hope I'll be back soon with another card to show you. Hope you have a great weekend!

Soft Morning Glory

Hey, two days in a row I've played a challenge. Let's see how long this lasts... Today's featured stamper is Stacy (aka Twinshappy), and let me tell you - I didn't even begin to look at all 15 pages of her gallery! Clearly she deserves to be featured, and her work is amazing. I chose this card for my CASE. I kept the layout basically the same, but I made a different scored panel (although I really like what Stacy did and will have to try it sometime), changed the image and colors, used brads in the corners, and added an extra layer as the card base.

I've had this Morning Soft image for a while but this was the first I'd used it. (Can I just say that I don't really miss trimming and mounting stamps - at all!) I stamped the flowers in always artichoke and colored with mellow moss, almost amethyst and lovely lilac markers (with just a touch of only orange in the centers). On the flowers I colored over all the shading with the lilac and then colored over with the amethyst and used a blender pen to soften the lines. I am much less experienced with coloring with markers - how did I do?

I cut the whole thing out and mounted with dimensionals over my scored background (made with a Scor-Pal). I used the ticket corner punch and vintage brads to accent the corners of the scored panel and the artichoke layer underneath, then mounted that with pop-up glue dots onto a panel of moss DP from the retired Winter Retreat scrap kit. On that layer I wrapped a piece of retired artichoke ribbon from Theater Originals around, and then used more dimensionals to mount that on a white top-folded card. The sentiment is the single stamp Glad Friends, stamped in artichoke on amethyst cardstock and punched with the designer label punch, then layered over a 1 3/8" artichoke circle. I added a flower from the Pretties Kit with another brad because it just seemed to need something else, but I'm not sure about it. Any suggestions?

Thanks for stopping by today. I've enjoyed my stamping time this weekend and I'm crossing my fingers that the week ahead will hold more of the same. But after last week, I'm not making any promises!

Where did this week go?

Remember Monday, when I said I was planning (or hoping) to post some stuff this week? I can't even believe it's the weekend and I didn't play a single challenge. I was working on a lot of Etsy stuff that's been partially finished for a long time, so that's where I've been.

You know how much I love the SCS inspiration challenge, so I definitely had to play. This was the photo that inspired me - the Global Market collection at Fitz and Floyd. I loved the colors and the style of the flowers. Although the colors really reminded me of some of last year's In Colors, I used the current set instead - baja breeze, riding hood red, and kiwi kiss, along with so saffron.

I first created my own patterned paper with one of the stamps from True Friend, using whisper white cardstock, riding hood red ink and my Stamp-a-ma-Jig. For the focal panel I used the large flower image from the same set. I stamped it in red, kiwi and saffron, then cut out the saffron flower and punched the red center with the 1/4" punch. I used baja breeze for layers on both. For embellishment I added a kiwi eyelet punch border, baja breeze ribbon, and riding hood red buttons tied with linen thread. The sentiment, stamped directly on the saffron card base, comes from Three Little Words. There, a sweet little card that really isn't as hard as it looks!

February (well, March part 1) club cards

I'm playing catch-up a bit today. I thought you might like to see the cards we made at my club meeting yesterday. We missed our one gal who was out sick but we still had a good time! We'll be meeting again in just a couple weeks because yesterday's session was actually the February meeting, which we had to reschedule from when I was sick myself. (Is it spring yet?)

This card uses the technique with watercolor crayons colored directly on the stamp and spritzed with water. We used the SAB set Botanical Blooms with elegant eggplant, always artichoke and mellow moss. I put a layer embossed with one of the texturz plates behind it, with taffeta moss ribbon, flowers from the Pretties Kit daubed with eggplant ink and accented with half pearls, and the Elegant Thank You stamp punched with the scallop square.

Here is the card we made to play with more SAB goodies. I got the idea for this card from a layout I saw in the most recent issue of Stampin' Success. The heart from Polka Dot Punches was stamped in certainly celery and bashful blue, then punched and accented with filigree brads. A strip from the Delicate Dots paper and a generation-stamped celery panel are the background, and then I wrapped a bit of knotted celery poly-twill ribbon around the blue paper. I used the congratulations sentiment from Congrats in chocolate chip and then added a corresponding layer over the white card base. I imagined that this could be a wedding or anniversary card.

I hope you enjoy these SUO cards, and thanks for stopping by!

And the ribbon goes to...

Patty C! Please email me your snail mail address and I'll send you some yummy ribbon from my stash. (Click on "view my complete profile" and you'll get an email link.) I haven't picked out your goodies yet so tell me your favorite colors or your wish list and I'll see what I can do. :)

I appreciate those who came and left comments for me. It was gratifying to know that there are readers out there who enjoyed the challenges. I'm starting to miss doing them so I'm contemplating bringing them back on a biweekly basis. I'm not sure when it would start back up, but definitely not this week. I hope you'll stay tuned and check back in!

Give some feedback and get a chance to win!

***NOTE extended deadline!***

I'm posting a follow-up to my decision to suspend my challenges. One person unsubscribed after I last posted, which made me sad since I would have liked to hear her thoughts before she did so. One reader suggested doing a monthly or biweekly challenge. I certainly can do that and would love to hear your thoughts about that idea. But I would also really like to know - what would get you readers out there to play along with the challenge? ;) Am I just a victim of challenge overload? I know there are so many challenges going - it's hard to play them all. What would make you want to do my ICs? Any and all feedback welcome - I'd love to hear your thoughts. And just to make it a little more fun, I'll send a goodie bag of some assorted ribbon to one person who leaves feedback for me. I'll pick the winner on Sunday, March 8, at 10 p.m. Eastern.

Pixie Blooms

It was a busy day here, with my stamp club meeting and church, but I had to squeeze in a challenge card for the featured stamper challenge. Today's stamper was Judy (aka StampingQueenJAR) who is such a great artist and person. Congrats, Judy! I picked this card because I liked the layout and I thought watercoloring would be fun today. I kept the layout (with fewer layers) and used some similar embellishments, but I changed the image and colors and used patterned paper instead of a stamped background. I also added some piercing.

I never got to play last week's color challenge (chocolate chip, pixie pink and kiwi kiss), and once I decided to use this flower image from Bloomin' Beautiful, that seemed like a great color combination for this card. For my watercoloring I used watercolor crayons and a kiwi reinker with my Aqua Painter. This pretty kiwi paper is from the Sweet Nothings Simply Scrappin' kit (can I just say, this kit is gorgeous). I pulled out my kiwi kiss satin ribbon and my retired copper Hodgepodge Hardware - I am almost out of these oval frames, which are my favorite. (Sniff.) The sentiment is from Sincere Salutations. It all went onto a very vanilla card base.

I think that's about it for this one - pretty simple! I am really hoping that I will be able to post more regularly in the coming weeks. I'm itching to make all kinds of stuff. And don't forget that I will choose someone to receive a ribbon goody bag tonight at 10 pm Eastern - please leave me a comment on my ICs to enter. The post is at the top of my blog home page. Thanks!

What a week!

I am so happy to have something to post today! I worked like a maniac and got my freelance project out the door on time, and I finished a custom order that needed to go out yesterday. So I decided I would give myself this morning off to stamp. (And it's also my birthday... so that's my present to myself, LOL.)

My mom asked me to make a card for her aunt and uncle's 65th wedding anniversary. Wow, 65 years - isn't that inspiring? I also played the SCS limited supply challenge to make a card in 30 minutes or less and Sharon's Stamp Simply challenge to use heat embossing.

I was inspired to use night of navy based on the only information I could find about the traditional gift for the 65th anniversary - the star sapphire is apparently the gemstone for this anniversary. My mom wanted the numbers on the card so I took some chipboard numbers from Timeless Type, covered them with navy craft ink, and embossed with clear EP. This is so quick and easy, and the chipboard looks so great embossed.

I also embossed the flower image from Thoughts and Prayers, but this time I used Ranger cobalt Antiquities EP. The stamped and embossed image was just not intense enough in color for me otherwise. The cobalt is not quite the same color, but it doesn't seem to matter - it just fills out the color of the ink. For cutting out I used a large Nestabilities oval.

For the background I used a panel of navy cardstock dry embossed with the swirl SU texture plate. I chose to use soft sky as an accent color for the large panel and the scallop border on the Nestabilities oval. Then I added a sentiment from Hugs & Wishes, attached the oval with dimensionals and added the soft sky ribbon and bow, and glued the numbers onto the oval.

OK, my morning is flying by - I'm off to see if I can finish anything else before school pickup this morning. Have a wonderful day and weekend - I'm so glad you visited today!

Hooray for Kelly H!

Kelly is today's chosen featured stamper and does she ever deserve it! She has a huge and amazing gallery. It took a while just to choose which card to CASE! In the end I picked this one - it just spoke to me. I kept the layout but made it a square card, used chocolate chip but with baja breeze, and made my own background instead of using a background stamp. I also left off the brads because, in all honesty, I forgot! But I don't think there was room for them anyway.

For my main panel I used the gorgeous flower image from Friends 24-7. It was stamped in chocolate chip on whisper white, then I accented the flowers and leaves with just a little bit of baja breeze ink and a blender pen. For layers I used baja breeze cardstock and the chocolate chip damask print paper from Parisian Breeze. I sponged the edges of everything with chocolate chip. The background is made with the damask stamp from the same set, with chocolate chip ink stamped off once. I added sponging over the whole panel, with extra on the edges, and some polka dot ribbon from the Valet pack.

The sentiment is from Thoughts and Prayers - I just colored the "Thinking of You" part with a marker. What do you think of my punch layering? This is a bit funky for me! I used the curvy label punch to make the layers. First I punched one label and placed it vertically behind the oval, then I punched another label and with it oriented the "correct" way I cut it in half, then adhered each half to the two ends of the oval.

This shabby chic style is one of my most favorites - I hope you like it, too! Have a wonderful day!

I'm just a girl who can't say no...

to a good inspiration challenge! Steph always brings lots of fun to SCSers every Saturday, and even though I'm sick and should be working on other things, I had to play. From all the gorgeous stuff at Room Service Home I chose this lamp - and not just the lamp but the entire photo inspired me for this card. (Click the link and you get get a larger shot.) This is my first time playing one of Taylor's cupcake sketch challenges. I always look at them but I've never had time to do one until now!

I took my lead first from the lamp and embossed the lily and stem from Fifth Avenue Floral with baja breeze cardstock, Versamark, and white EP. I chose the white and kraft patterned paper from Urban Oasis based on the wallpaper in the photo. For a pop of orange I took the smaller flower stamp and embossed it with clear EP on a panel of tangerine tango cardstock. I did add black accents because I wanted all the fairly light colors to stand out.

To finish my card, I stamped the lovely sentiment from Fifth Avenue Floral on kraft cardstock and surrounded it with one of the Gallery frames, then cut it out. I put three vintage brass brads on 1/2" black circles and added them at the bottom of the tangerine panel. Then at the last minute I added the bit of tangerine ribbon. I was having trouble putting my card together until I had the aha! moment of making it a square card, and voila. This is 5.5" square, which is a very nice size card.

OK, I'll be getting back to my work now. Even though I'm still sick, creating something always makes me feel at least a little better. Thanks for visiting today!

Where *is* everybody?

OK, I'm going to have to include myself in that - it's been a tough week. And now I'm sick. So I apologize for not posting, and I'll warn you that next week is probably going to be more of the same. BUT... I'm so disappointed that I've had so few comments on this post. I know that lots of you out there reading love challenges, and ribbon, so I'd hoped for a better response. I'm going to extend the deadline again because I just don't have enough data yet to make a decision, and if I don't get any additional feedback, then I'll have to take that as a sign that my inspiration challenges don't have enough of a following to consider bringing them back at all. :( I would hate for that to happen - I know I've heard positive things from a lot of folks in the past, so please leave a comment and let me know your thoughts!

안녕하세요

No, you are not on the wrong blog! My post title today is the formal "hello" in Korean, pronounced “Ahn-YOUNG-ha-SEH-yo." Why am I greeting you in Korean? Well, it's a two-part answer. Part 1 is the featured stamper challenge for today, featuring Jami (sgtStamper), who lives in Korea. Part 2 is that as a senior in college, I spent my last three months of school living in Taegu, South Korea. I chose to CASE Jami's beautiful Korean thank-you card partly out of my fondness for this country where I was lucky enough to spend a short amount of time.

Jami's card used one of Beate's sketches, so I flipped the layout and fiddled with it some. I used similar colors but did stamping instead of making my own flowers and stem.

I started with the largest image from the hostess set Echoes of Kindness. I stamped with jet black Stazon on watercolor paper, then watercolored with an Aqua Painter and riding hood red and kiwi kiss reinkers. The sentiment comes from the retired hostess set Best Yet. For the background I used a panel of black dry-embossed cardstock, embossed with the swirl texturz plate. Behind the flowers I put a strip of Scenic Route Sonoma paper edged with a strip of scalloped border in kiwi. I punched out the scallop circle punch to tie those elements together and added three vintage brads in the upper right corner.

Thanks for stopping by today, and don't forget to check out my ribbon giveaway post requesting feedback on my blog inspiration challenges. I was going to draw the winner tonight but I haven't received very many comments yet, so I'll extend it for a week. I'd really love to know your thoughts!

Feeling a little rusty

Here's my first challenge card since Sunday - I think I'm a bit out of practice! This card looked better in my head, but here it is anyway. I wanted to play along with the SCS inspiration challenge this morning, which is on a fun site called Flutter. I picked this pillow - the colors and patterns just jumped out at me. My layout is Beate's weekend sketch challenge - it's so nice having her challenges back!

I chose the colors riding hood red, sage shadow, and bordering blue and the stamp set Simple Friendship to make my own designer paper. In the end I only used a tiny bit of it, though! Under that strip I added a piece of sage cardstock stamped with just the swirl in sage shadow. I stamped the butterfly in riding hood red and cut out, then did the sentiment also in red and cut with Nestabilities.

To finish the card I first ran some bordering blue cardstock through the Big Shot with one of the texturz plates and used that for the background. The designer paper on the right is from Scenic Route's Sonoma collection - if you haven't seen these papers, check them out because they are fabulous. You'll be seeing them on my blog a lot, I think. The ribbon and bow are sage grosgrain ribbon, and for just a bit of sparkle I added some blue A Muse twinkle stickers.

Thanks for visiting my blog today, and don't forget to check out my ribbon giveaway post asking for feedback on my own inspiration challenges! Deadline for leaving a comment is Sunday night at 10 p.m. Eastern.

I've made a difficult decision

I have decided that I am going to discontinue my weekly inspiration challenges--for the time being, anyway--the reasons being:

(1) My life has gotten busier and it's become harder to find the time to do the challenge - and then it feels more like an obligation and it's just not as fun.

(2) The lack of participation is just too disheartening to me. :(

If anyone out there is reading and is really disappointed by this news, let me know, please! I may decide to bring the challenges back someday. Or I may just do them when I feel led to and not on a weekly schedule. I know that I will not stop seeing inspiration everywhere I go, so I'm sure that the concept will still be around on my blog.

In the meantime I plan to keep posting SCS and other challenge cards, SU club projects, and fun stuff I make for my Etsy shop - so I hope that will keep you all coming back to my blog. I know I love sharing my stamping with all of you! Thanks for your understanding and your support.

A Cheep Hello

Hey, it's my first chance to really play with some goodies from the Sale-a-Bration catalog. There is great stuff to choose from this time around - I honestly love all of it! I broke out the designer paper, Delicate Dots, and the ribbon (so saffron wide grosgrain; you also get certainly celery poly-twill), and paired them with the Cheep Talk stamp set for my featured stamper challenge card. Today's featured stamper is juliemlacey - I'm not sure I've been to her gallery before, but her creations are gorgeous so I don't know how I could have missed it! This is the card I chose to CASE. I fell in love with the layout and thought it would be good to showcase this stamp set.

I mostly kept the layout except that I flipped it to make room for my bigger stamped panel, and then I had to fiddle with a couple of the other elements to make it all work together. I was bummed that I didn't have room for a knot on my ribbon. I used different colors and images (obviously) and added a little paper piercing. I used the new 5/16" white brads - aren't they cool?

To make my stamped panel, I first stamped the branch in certainly celery, then colored the bird with bashful blue, so saffron and chocolate chip markers. For dimension I cut out another impression of the bird's body and popped it up. The flower was stamped in saffron, cut out, and mounted on dimensionals. One of the last things I did was stamp the flower again with chocolate chip ink and cardstock, then I punched out the center with the 1/2" circle punch. I think it really made the flower pop.

I think that's it for today. I have a really busy week ahead - and it's also school vacation week so Ben and I are going to have a lot more time together than usual... wish me luck! Thanks for stopping by today. Have a great week!

How do I love thee?

That's the theme of this card, which I made for today's limited supply challenge and also to give to Todd for Valentine's Day. The challenge was to stretch ourselves and do things we don't normally do. So here are what I consider to be my "stretches" for this card:

The card size. It fits in a #10 envelope. I needed to make a card this size to fit Todd's Valentine's Day gift of some concert tickets, and since I've never made a tall and skinny card, that fit today's challenge perfectly!

Very little stamping. My initial idea was to cover the white rectangle with the word "love" over and over with the same set of rub-ons. But then I had the thought to use all the different rub-ons that I had, to fit with the Elizabeth Barrett Browning poem. I used three sets of American Crafts alphabet rub-ons, one set of American Crafts stickers, and the word "love" and more alphabet rub-ons from as many retired SU packs as I could lay my hands on. It still looked a bit sparse, though, so I filled in the spaces with more "love" words from any stamps I could find that had it on somewhere. I count six that are stamped. I just colored only that word with a basic black marker and stamped it where I wanted it to go. The two hearts are from the Always set, stamped in basic black and riding hood red.

Limited layers and a quite simple layout. I used the long rectangle Nestabilities and that's really it! I was surprised how much I struggled with placing the elements on the card - I couldn't believe how hard it was.

Finally, colored brads - I've had these American Crafts brads, which are a great match for riding hood red, for a very long time and I'd never cracked them open. I guess I just prefer metallic or neutral brads, but I should use these more often! (FYI, American Crafts also makes some that look great with baja breeze.)

I'll finish my card by putting the first two lines of the poem on the inside. I know Todd loves Romantic poetry and the Brownings, so I hope this will be a hit with him.

Inspiration Challenge #47: L.L.Bean throw pillows

I saw these pillows on the back of an L.L.Bean catalog and just loved them. I'm really digging springy colors right now - maybe because I'm sick to death of winter! (They also have a lobster, crab, and starfish - I didn't include those here because, well, I wasn't sure they would be inspiring for a card, LOL. But if they are, go crazy!)

My favorite pillow is the Garden Vine - the blue one. I love the crispness of the pale blue against the clean white background. For my colors I chose always artichoke, mellow moss, brocade blue and bordering blue, with lots of white. I used the sketch challenge for my layout, although I flipped it so I could use the flower from Live Your Dream. A year after it came out and it's still one of my favorite stamps.

I started by coloring the stamp with markers. I used the side of the brocade blue marker's brush tip to "rock 'n roll" on the flowers, and did the same with the artichoke marker on the leaves. To imitate the green piping on the pillow, I used moss cardstock for all my layers. The background panels are white cardstock run through the Big Shot with the tiny dot texturz plate, bordering blue with a strip of white organdy polka dot ribbon, and white with one edge run through the Big Shot with one of the Nestabilities Victorian border Piercerabilities and pierced according to the die template. I added the bow after assembling all the layers together, and I added some more piercing to tie things together.

I tried a few different sentiments but this is what I settled on. I colored the "many thanks" stamp from Lots of Thoughts with the bordering blue marker and again edged the letters with brocade blue - I'm not sure this came through too well, but I tried. I pierced the scallop circle to go along with the rest of the piercing.

Whew, this card took a lot of time - but I think it was worth it, even though I probably should have been doing other things this morning. Oh well! Come and play along with the challenge this week - your SCS keyword is DSIC47, and be sure you leave a comment here with a link to your card! Thanks for visiting today!

Retired stamps for sale

I'm listing the retired stamp sets that I've decided to part with. Here is the list. First to pay gets the goods!

If not new, these stamps are in great condition. The older stamps may have slight staining on rubber or wood but nothing too noticeable. Lots of stamping life left!

Cheap shipping not included - contact me for a quote on the sets you're interested in. I can accept funded or CC Paypal but please cover fees for CC. Thanks and happy shopping!

*************************************************************
REDUCED PRICES! Take $1 off any set $10 or less, $2 off any set over $10!
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Beautiful Life $10 SOLD
Bitty Basics NUM $8
Bundle of Joy $12 SOLD
Bundled in Love $18 SOLD
Classic Backgrounds $5 (argyle UM)
Deer Friends $20 SOLD
Delight in Life $8
Eat Cake $8
Greetings Galore $6
Happy Birthday wheel (goes with Eat Cake) $6
Live Like You Mean It $10
Live Like You Mean It NUM $14
Merci $10
Merry & Bright NUM $12
Organic Grace $10
Paisley $14
Serene Spring NUM $20 SOLD
So Many Scallops $10
Stitched $12
Sweet Stars wheel (goes with Bundle(d) sets) $6
Take Three $8
Wonderful Words $20

Parisian Freesia

Wow, I am really challenge deprived these days. I've been working on a freelance project and stuff for my Etsy shop, but I haven't been able to play a challenge in a while. I always love the featured stamper challenge so I'm glad I had time for this one. Today's featured stamper is K (Karen) Dunbrook - congrats, Karen! I'm not sure I've been to her gallery before, but she does lovely work. This card was right up my alley. I kept the layout and the black accents, and used similar stamp placement and embellishments but changed the images and the colors and used slightly different treatments of the various elements. This is a BIG card - almost 6" square. But I needed that much area to pull off this design and I love the result.

For the center of the white panel I used an Inkadinkado canvas stamp in baja breeze, stamped off once first. Over that I stamped this gorgeous Cornish Heritage Farms freesia image in basic black. I added the sentiment from Short & Sweet then paper pierced a line under the words. At the corners I used some of the black ribbon from the Valet Ribbon Originals and a baja breeze button tied with black embroidery floss. I mounted this with dimensionals over a panel of Parisian Breeze paper. Instead of stitching I used some retired rub-ons in the corners. One more black layer and a card made from textured white cardstock - and that was it!

Inspiration Challenge #46: Miniboden Hotchpotch Dress

If you have kids then you might have heard of Miniboden. They have such cute things! For today's challenge I picked this darling hotchpotch dress. I loved the fun flowers and dots, and the colors.

I didn't choose the yellow for this week - I think I got enough yellow last week! I picked the colors not quite navy, almost amethyst, and old olive. I used the SCS sketch challenge for my layout.

This is one of the simplest challenge cards I've made in a long time. It was partly necessity - I don't have a sitter for Sarah this morning so I'm pressed for time. But I also wanted to play with the Pretties Kit, which I just earned through Great Rewards, and I decided to let the sentiment play center stage in the pretty frame from Frames with a Flourish.

I started by making a not quite navy card and embossing an amethyst panel with the floral SU texture plate for the Big Shot. What a quick way to make a big impact on a card! For my layers I used a square of not quite navy with dots, from the retired hostess prints, a bit of olive striped paper (also one of the retired patterns), and the sentiment, from the retired hostess set Best Yet. For embellishments I used olive wide grosgrain ribbon, flowers from the Pretties Kit (colored with not quite navy and amethyst markers), and half-back white pearls. I think this turned out really sweet!

I'd love for you to play along this week - come join in on the fun! This week's SCS keyword is DSIC46. And be sure to leave a comment here for everyone to see your creation!

Tin o' Tiny Tags

Here's a sweet little set of tags that I was working on this week. They're up for sale in my Etsy shop (the link is on the lefthand side of my blog). I was inspired by the tags on the last page of the catalog - I'd been thinking of making some tags to sell and these are what I came up with. I did CASE a couple of the catalog ones, but then I branched out with my own ideas as well.

For my colors I used so saffron, kiwi kiss, and baja breeze - I loved these colors on my IC card from Wednesday and wanted to play with them some more! I decided to make these with textured cardstock, which just adds a little more texture and interest. I used a variety of supplies, including the stamp sets Only Ovals, Cute & Curly, Say It with Scallops, Starring You, Pocket Silhouettes, and the Polka Dot Punches set from the Sale-a-Bration catalog. (Don't forget, SAB starts today! You can also get a free catalog if you order through my SU web site - click on my profile to get to the link.)

For each tag I used the Crop-a-Dile to set a small eyelet for a ribbon loop. I also added another little detail to each tag, such as piercing, flowers, rub-ons, brads, etc. Here are some photos of the tags. The curly label Pocket Silhouettes tag was stamped by using a reverse mask so I could just stamp the flowers inside the label.

For the layers I used a variety of punches and Nestabilities, and some hand-cutting for shapes that I didn't have a layering tool for. (Just a tip: it's harder than it seems to cut nice, even borders around curly labels and hearts!)


Then I decorated an altoid-style tin to hold all the little tags. I think this set turned out so cute!

Inspiration Challenge #45: Amelia Snap Pouch

I was browsing Etsy last night and came across this sweet little pouch by candyargyle. Isn't it too cute? I love the flowers and the colors. I was inspired by the fabric on the outside, but the lining fabric is fun as well - be sure you look at all the photos!

For my card I chose baja breeze, so saffron, kiwi kiss, and chocolate chip for my colors. I used the SCS sketch challenge for my layout. Did I go overboard? I was having too much fun putting lots of stuff on this card.

I wanted to make a flower pattern inspired by the pouch, so I took the smallest flower from Petal Pizazz and stamped it in chocolate chip, saffron, and baja breeze, using the Stamp-a-ma-Jig for alignment. I was able to do it in diagonal rows so that I didn't have to change ink color for every single impression. The large flower from the same set was stamped in baja breeze and chocolate chip, then I punched out the chocolate chip center with the 1/2" circle punch and added it to the baja flower. The leaves are stamped in kiwi.

For background I used the dot print from the kiwi patterns pack and a saffron paper from a retired Simply Scrappin' kit. I used a strip of baja cardstock with a bit of kiwi ribbon, and then added ribbon just at the top of the yellow panel with a big, fun bow. I had just enough room for the sentiment from Think Happy Thoughts. I used a lot of dimensionals on this one - this is definitely not a 42-cent card!

I am going to ignore the snow that's falling outside my window and think about spring with these fun colors. I hope you're inspired to join in! This week's SCS keyword is DSIC45. Please come and play, and leave a comment here so everyone can see!

Club cards for Valentine's Day

Oops, I never got around to posting these over the weekend! Time has a way of slipping through my fingers...

We had a very fun time at our first club meeting last Friday. We were going to do two cards but I ended up making three because I just couldn't decide!

The first one was the most labor-intensive. I wanted to teach the "Roll with the Punches" technique created by Laura Fredrickson. I used our new full heart punch, the So Swirly wheel, and riding hood red ink. To define the hearts I sponged around the punched-out hearts with the red ink and a dauber. I also used the eyelet border punch on this card. It's not too hard to make the square - I basically followed the SCS tutorial for making squares with the scallop edge punch. This punch I think is even easier because you can line up the eyelet holes at the corners. Try it - it's fun! The sentiment stamp comes from All Holidays and the designer paper is Candy Lane.

I wanted to do a card that the club members could give to their hubbies. You know that masculine valentines are not easy! Todd told me he thought the lovebirds were too cutesy, but I and my fellow stampers disagreed, LOL. These stamps are from Love You Much and A Happy Heart. I used some basic gray retired Halloween paper along with basic black and real red cardstock. I added just a bit of piercing at the corners to dress it up a bit.

This was a quick card that I added at the last minute, just in case they wanted to make a feminine card. The heart is also from Love You Much, the sentiment from A Happy Heart, and the paper is again Candy Lane. The combination of close to cocoa and pink pirouette is so soft and pretty.

That's it for today - wow, this day has flown by and I have yet to stamp a single thing. You know how it feels - a day without stamping is like a day without sunshine! :) Hope you all find a little sunshine in your day with whatever makes you smile!

Love Times Two

Here's a pretty quick Valentine that still looks elegant. I'm breaking out some more new SU stuff with this card, which I made for the featured stamper challenge on SCS. Today's stamper is Vicky Gould - she's an amazing artist with an enormous, gorgeous gallery! I picked the first card that jumped out at me, which was this one.

I was inspired by Vicky's use of the Cuttlebug birds and swirls folder to try out the new SU-exclusive texture plates from Sizzix. I used the swirly one - it's gorgeous. Based on some advice from other demos, I stacked up the sandwich with an additional layer of cardstock on top - that gives a deeper impression. I used the plate on whisper white, pink pirouette and bravo burgundy cardstock, and to highlight the swirls a bit more I wiped a paper towel dipped in burgundy ink over all of the swirls.

I decided to use the Love heart from A Happy Heart and make this a Valentine's card. I stamped it on pink and burgundy with Versamark, embossed with clear EP, and cut the hearts out. Then I made a scalloped rectangle with the scallop edge punch from the white swirl-embossed cardstock and mounted the hearts with dimensionals. I added white taffeta ribbon and put the heart panel over that with more dimensionals.

For my three brads I took the Heart to Heart punch and punched out three little hearts from burgundy cardstock, then mounted them on 1/2" inch white circles with brass vintage brads. I adhered them to the card with glue dots and stamped Happy Valentine's Day on the inside. How's that for (fairly) simple elegance?

The joy of a new catalog

Have I mentioned that I really love all the wonderful new stuff in the spring/summer catalog? Wow. It's just gorgeous. And how perfect was it that today's SCS inspiration challenge featured an image that let me use several new things on one card?

I started out with the stunning Parisian Breeze specialty papers. The colors of chocolate chip and baja breeze were perfect for this challenge. The stamp set is Friends 24-7, which has some really elegant images. It's definitely one of my favorites in the new catalog.

I chose the dot and floral papers and put two panels of them together, then covered the seam with baja breeze satin ribbon from the Valet Ribbon Originals. The flower is stamped on baja breeze cardstock in chocolate chip, with the damask stamp as a background. I used baja breeze ink stamped off once. Instead of a full layer I added a strip of chocolate chip punched with the eyelet border punch on one side. To think I wasn't going to get this punch - I think I'm going to be using it all the time!

The sentiment also comes from the same set. I hope it's readable - I really wanted to repeat the floral print in the bottom of the card for balance. I used the circle and scallop circle punches, and then to mimic the eyelet punch, I used the 1/16" inch punch on the scallops.

I have another idea for this challenge, so I hope I'll get to come back again later. I'd also love to show you what we made at club last night, which was really fun. Hope you gals enjoyed it! But right now I'm off to Jump On In for a birthday party with Ben. Thanks for stopping by and hopefully I'll have more for you later on!

Inspiration Challenge #44: Nature's Curiosities

Wow, it's Wednesday already! This week's challenge is a set of prints called Nature's Curiosities. The link will show you all nine images, but here I'm showing you the two that were my main source of inspiration. These really reminded me of the set Flores Suaves from the SU Spanish catalog. For my layout I used today's SCS sketch challenge, which worked so perfectly.

I started my card with the colors very vanilla, close to cocoa, rose red/purely pomegranate, kiwi kiss, and baja breeze, and the background paper from Making Memories. I stamped everything with Timber Brown Stazon on watercolor paper, then watercolored with pomegranate, kiwi, and baja breeze reinkers and an Aqua Painter. For the center of the butterfly I used a mixture of close to cocoa and chocolate chip watercolor crayons. (I tried using rose red on the flower first, but it wasn't dark enough when watercolored.) I sponged cocoa ink on the edges of everything, even the butterfly. The sentiment is by A Muse, and I placed it in a retired copper Hodgepodge Hardware oval threaded with rose red grosgrain ribbon. For mounting I had to stamp the butterfly again in order to get the antennae, then I used that as a guide to positioning everything and mounted the butterfly on dimensionals.

Please come play along with the challenge this week! Your SCS keyword this week is DSIC44. Don't forget to put a link to your creation here so everyone can see!

What a fun surprise!

I logged onto SCS this morning to check the color challenge, only to find it was based on one of my cards! After I made that card, I sent it to Emily as a suggestion for a color challenge, and she chose it for today. I was really excited, and I think people had fun with it. At least I hope so!

I wanted to participate in the challenge and make a new card. I really liked my original idea with these colors so in hopes of finding inspiration, I turned to some new stamps that just arrived yesterday. Before the new catalog preview ended I ordered Petal Pizazz, which has some very fun flowers in it. I think the one I used today is going to be my favorite. I stamped it in both bravo burgundy and regal rose, then cut out both flowers. I did the same for the leaves in kiwi kiss. Then I stamped the stems in kiwi and added the flowers and leaves with dimensionals.

For a subtle background I stamped the same flower with Versamark on a panel of regal rose cardstock. I thought the Cute & Curly sentiment was a nice way to echo the curve of the flowers. I layered that onto burgundy and then added a bow made from wide regal rose grosgrain ribbon, another layer of burgundy cardstock, and a white top-folded card.

Sorry that I was absent for so many days! My mom was here and I was enjoying spending time with her. One really good thing is that she helped me clean my studio - it's looking soooo much better now. Thanks, Mom! Let's hope I can keep it clean. I better go check if I put all my supplies away!

I'm a color combo junkie

Today's ways to use it challenge on SCS was a fabulous idea - to find a site with inspiration for color combinations. Julia suggested this Adobe site - wow, what a wealth of color possibilities are there! I will definitely be coming back to that site. I browsed a lot of combos but was basically looking for something that could be a valentine. I finally chose a combination called Samson, and from that I came up with rose red, bravo burgundy, kraft, garden green, and very vanilla.

Here's my card. I'm not sure what I think of this... I don't love it but I don't really know why! I stamped the flower image from Flower Fancy in rose red, garden green, and burgundy. I added the Hero Arts sentiment in burgundy at the bottom, then cut out the flower with Nestabilities and layered onto a scalloped burgundy oval. The rose red patterned paper is left over from a retired scrappin' kit. Over that I added some kraft taffeta ribbon. For layers I used a burgundy panel, then a kraft panel and a vanilla card.

I'm going to keep it short today - we have family coming and lots of cleaning to do! Hopefully I'll find some time to post over the weekend. It's going to be so cold here that we're not going to want to go anywhere. Hope it's warmer where you are, and if it is, I envy you!

Masculine valentines

If you want a challenge, try making a valentine suitable for giving to a man. Why is it so difficult? Last year when I did a vendor fair for Valentine's Day, it was a specific comment that I needed more masculine cards. So I'm trying to fill that need this year, but it's not easy making a valentine with no pink, ribbon, flowers, or anything else girly! Here are my first two attempts. Tell me if I succeeded in my quest!

This card uses a stamp from the retired hostess set So Many Sayings. I stamped it in riding hood red on white cardstock, then cut and embossed with Nestabilities. I covered a white card with a panel from the riding hood red patterns pack, then cut a strip of red cardstock, added three jumbo pewter eyelets, and mounted with dimensionals. The inside says "Happy Valentine's Day."

For this card, I stamped the heart (Northwoods) on vanilla cardstock with real red ink in two generations, then added another first-generation heart over the top of the lighter heart. I layered this onto black cardstock. I cut a strip from real red designer paper (in the hostess patterns pack) and stamped the sentiment (My Sentiments Exactly) in black. To finish I added four black vintage brads, vanilla accent strips, a black background panel, and a vanilla card. I stamped "Happy Valentine's Day" on the inside of this one as well.

What do you think? I like the clean lines of both of these cards - although Todd likes frou-frou things sometimes, I know most men don't, so I hope these will suit someone. They are going right into my Etsy shop - I'm behind in stocking my inventory with valentines!

Inspiration Challenge #43: Athleta Tunic Cami

Welcome back to my IC! It's been a very long time and it feels good to finally bring the challenge back. Let's hope there are no more unexpected interruptions like this one! This week's keyword for SCS upload is DSIC43. I hope you will come and play!

I'm starting off easy this week - great colors and images to work with in this cami from Athleta. This was one of those catalog items that made me gasp when I saw it, and I knew I had to use it right away.

I made my card a fairly literal interpretation. I did the top background panel first, which is a gorgeous B Line Designs damask background stamp, using baja breeze on vanilla cardstock. Then I stamped the Pretty Petals background, inking only the stems and leaves with a blender pen and kiwi kiss reinker. Next I added the flowers, which are from Eastern Blooms and A Beautiful Thing, using kiwi kiss, riding hood red, baja breeze, and chocolate chip. I used riding hood red cardstock for layering and riding hood red/vanilla taffeta ribbon to define the two stamped areas. Over these backgrounds I put the large branch image from Eastern Blooms with a Hero Arts sentiment. I cut and embossed both of these with Nestabilities and popped them up on dimensionals, then put it all on a baja breeze card.

Do you have a go-to layout that you use when you want something that never fails? This is probably mine. It's a good one to have in my back pocket for when I need it - I really love long and skinny images and it works every time!

Thanks so much for stopping by today. If you play the challenge, don't forget to leave a comment so everyone can see!

I thought I was keeping it simple today

So how did I end up spending over an hour on this card? I really wanted to do today's color challenge to use baja breeze, not quite navy, and kraft, and this is what I came up with. I also used Julee's Mojo Monday sketch for the week, which was a lot of fun.

I started with this large topper stamp by Stampendous. It's actually a Mother's Day stamp, so I just inked the circle and flowers with not quite navy marker and then added my own sentiment (also by Stampendous). I stamped onto vanilla cardstock then paper pieced the vase and flowers using Green Tea and Urban Garden papers. I cut out the vanilla circle and put that onto a kraft scalloped circle cut and embossed with Nestabilities. The rest is a strip of the same Green Tea paper on not quite navy cardstock, two strips of kraft taffeta ribbon, and three baja breeze buttons tied with hemp twine and adhered to 3/4" vanilla circles.

I'm all out of time now so I'll just say thanks for stopping by, and be sure to come back tomorrow for the return of the Inspiration Challenge!

Don't be alarmed

I know that Christmas is over, LOL. What am I doing making a Christmas card, then? Well, I'm not exactly sure. All I know is that I sat down to make a card to submit for the most recent Take Ten sketch challenge, and this is what I was inspired to make. If it's selected for publication, who knows when it might appear - so why not let my holiday cheer linger a bit? The sketch, by the way, was by Jen del Muro so you know it's a good one.

I wanted to have a nice mix of textures on my card, so I started with the stamp from A Christmas Cardinal and the Birds and Swirls cuttlebug folder. I really liked how the cardinal came out colored with markers at my Christmas stamp camp so I used that approach again, but using riding hood red instead of real red here. I cut the cardinal out with one of my rectangle Nestabilities and embossed it as well. I layered everything with black for a crisp look. The old olive houndstooth paper comes from the Holiday Treasures DP. For contrast I added a bit of black and white dot organdy ribbon, and then a Hero Arts sentiment with circle punches.

I'm really pleased with how this turned out! I almost hate to send it away. But since getting published was one of my New Year's resolutions, I might as well start now. I actually pulled five other cards from my stash to send to the magazine at the same time. We'll just have to wait and see what happens!

I'm back!

Ahhhh... the joys of being online at home again. After being offline for so long, I feel like I'm buried under a blizzard's worth of stuff to catch up on! I don't have anything else to post at the moment, but I'm hoping to be back with more soon.

On a side note, January is going to be a tough month because Todd is also buried, under mounds of paperwork trying to get research funding. It's been a rough couple of years but now it's really getting down to the wire. If you are the praying sort, I know it would be much appreciated. He has several deadlines coming in the next few weeks and I'm sure it's going to be a busy time for all of us. But I'm really hoping to keep my blog current as much as possible - at least more than I have for the past month, anyway!

I'm an Internet castaway...

... alone on my island with no online access! At least that's how I feel. I wrote that my internet access was down since the ice storm we had, and it appears that the storm somehow fried my modem. Verizon finally came out to look at it today and they'll be sending me a new one, but it looks like the earliest I'll be back online is the end of the week. It's so frustrating!

I guess I'll be absent from the blogging world this week. It was nice to be able to get online at my mom's over the holidays, and I'm going crazy not being able to do challenges and post stuff, or update my Etsy shop. It won't be possible to do my inspiration challenge this week, either, unfortunately. Hopefully by next week this will all be resolved!

Too... many... challenges!

Holy cow - I couldn't believe the overabundance of challenges yesterday. In addition to the usual sketch challenge and the special holiday challenge, SCS had a special day of challenges for New Year's Eve, and there were so many good ones! I hope I get a chance to make some cards today. Yesterday I managed to complete two cards so I thought I'd share them with you before I get busy making more.

This card was for yesterday's Holiday Challenge Extravaganza challenge. Katherine provided a great sketch that was perfect for an image that I watercolored a few days ago but hadn't done anything with yet. I had stamped the bouquet from Bloomin' Beautiful in basic black and then watercolored using tangerine tango, baja breeze, and old olive reinkers. Unusually for me, I didn't do any layers on this card. My patterned papers came from the tangerine patterns pack and the Hawaii Papaya collection. I used a new toy for this card - the Spellbinders Piercerabilities pinking border dies. These borders are so cool because you can cut and emboss the border and then add a paper-pierced pattern. To match I added piercing on the corners of the stamped panel, then inked the edges with baja breeze. I did the same with the oval-punched sentiment from Sincere Salutations, added some baja breeze ribbon, and mounted the flowers and sentiment with dimensionals.

Up next: a card that was for both the week's sketch challenge and the 7 P's New Year's challenge. This was a fun one, to use at least four of piercing, paper piecing, pink, polka dots, patterned paper, pop dots, and punches. I think I used all of them - it really wasn't that hard! I started with the Crazy for Cupcakes image, chocolate chip ink, and pink pirouette polka-dot paper from the patterns pack. I pieced the cupcake paper, then colored the candle and sprinkles with blender pen and pink pirouette reinker, and finally added glitter pen on the sprinkles and the flame. I used more dot paper for the background and also a strip of chocolate chip striped paper from Hawaii Papaya. The sentiment is from A Muse and was punched with the wide oval punch, then I added piercing around the cupcake and the sentiment. For the oval I used the plastic guide from the mat pack, repositioning the holes to match the curve of the oval. I added some pink pirouette ribbon and dimensionals - that was it!

I hope you all have a great day today with some time to play these super challenges. Thanks for stopping by!