{SSSC195} & {PPA175}

Welcome back, everyone! It is a glorious Thanksgiving long weekend here in Canada and let me just tell you how much I love this time of year.  It truly is a glorious sight to watch all the leaves change color and drop from the trees - the fact that the white stuff is coming is quietly forgotten.  ;)

If you have a few extra minutes over the next two weeks, I would encourage you to play along with the new Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge.  Karen has given us a totally CAS sketch that wouldn't take long at all to whip up a card for.  My card took me less than 20 minutes and only that long because I couldn't decide which leaf I wanted to use.  ;)  Take a peek:

I was totally in the fall-mood so when I found this week's Pals Paper Arts color combo, I knew I had to make use of it:

I dug out one of my old Verve favorites, Tall Oaks, and used one of the sentiments:

Need to see more?  All of the fabulous Sweet Sunday Stampers have inspiration for you, so please stop by and say hello to:

Dana White 

Dawn Easton 

Jackie Pedro
Jodi Collins 

Karen Giron
  Karen Motz 

Lisa Henke

Lori Tecler 

Lynn Put 

Sarah-Jane Kalé 

Tracy Clemente 

Vicki Burdick 

Thanks for joining me today - if you are in Canada, enjoy your LONG weekend!  Eat some turkey, eh? 

 

4CCC-129 {Sketch}

Happy Valentine's Day, crafty chickadees!  I hope you are all having a fabulous week and taking some time to get a little inky.  It's my turn to be the hostess with the mostest over at the 4 Crafty Chicks and this week, I've created a CAS sketch for you all to play with:

I found a fun color combo over at Pals Paper Arts - it's been a long time since I've played along with their challenges and with this one being a color challenge, it was right up my alley!

I decided to stay CAS with my card and use coordinating patterned papers to jazz it up.  The sentiment is from one of the new sets from The Alley Way Stamps called All About YOU...awesome sentiments, my friends:

If you'd like to check out what the rest of the Chicks did with my sketch, pop over to the 4CCC blog - they are all pretty amazing!  Enjoy your Valentine's Day everyone and I'll see you tomorrow with a brand new BE Inspired Challenge!


 

Love Is In The Air...

Hello again!  Are you surprised to see two posts from me in one day?  I'm almost as shocked as you are!  I have had a pretty busy week thus far so I decided to take a rest day from the gym and stayed home to play in my craft room.

So...it's February and that means Valentine's Day is right around the corner.  Do you do something special with your family for V-Day?  Or is it mostly for you and your significant other?  I must admit that over the years, between kids and work and other *stuff*, we haven't really made V-Day a couples day - it's been mostly a family affair.  Not sure what we're going to do this year... we'll see. :)

I haven't played with the gang over at Pals Paper Arts for a LONG time so when I saw their color challenge this morning, I JUMPED on it - you know me and a color challenge... I saw this sketch last week over at Clean&Simple Stamping and knew I *had* to use it ASAP.  It is a sketch that I will use over and over again:

Stamps: You and I (Verve)  Paper: Yours Truly (Echo Park), Real Red, Basic Black, Whisper White  Ink: Versafine Onyx Black  Accessories: Tipsy Hearts die (Sizzix), buttons, Divine Twine (TCP), sewing machine, dimensionals

Thanks for stopping by today - enjoy your Thursday!

PPC Meets Pals Paper Arts

Good Monday morning everyone!  Have all of my American friends recovered from the Thanksgiving turkey and Black Friday hangover?  I hope you all enjoyed the time spent with family and friends.  :)

This week's Picture Perfect Creations Color Combination is one that screamed "BOY CARD" and since our very own Megan is enjoying some time at home with her new little bundle of boy-joy I thought I would make a baby card in honor of the new baby's arrival. (Well, at least we *think* she has had the baby since none of us have heard from her for over a week now... :)

I know I just used the Pals Paper Arts sketch for my card yesterday but I loved it so much I had to use it again:

Stamps: Nursery Necessities (SU!)  Ink: Versamark, Not Quite Navy, Poppy Parade, Soft Sky  Paper: Poppy Parade, Not Quite Navy, Whisper White, Kraft, Daffodil Delight, SU! DSP  Accessories: Nesties, Waves Die (TCP), Poppy Parade ribbon, buttons, baker's twine, Square Lattice embossing folder, paper piercer, square punch, dimensionals, sponge dauber, clear embossing powder, heat tool

I hope you will take some time to join us at PPC - we love it when you do.  If you need more inspiration, please pop over to the DT's blogs - they always amaze me with their creativity.  Enjoy your Monday -see you again soon!

A Recipe Challenge at Sentimental Sundays!

Welcome to another Sentimental Sunday!  This week's challenge is a recipe challenge - use 3 DSPs, 3 buttons and ribbon - and don't forget your sentiment!

I decided to combine Arielle's Colour Q challenge and the Pals Paper Arts sketch for my card this week:

Don't you LOVE this combo?  It's a warm and fuzzy kind of combination, isn't it?

I hope you will take some time this week to play with us - I know that the holiday season can eat into our *free* time, but we'd love it if you could share your creativity with us.

Thanks for stopping in this morning - enjoy the rest of your weekend!

8-in-1 Monday!

Wow...I sometimes shock even myself!  I don't think I've ever done a card that incorporated eight challenges at the same time.  Of course it helps when so many challenges have the same theme the same week.  :)

So, here are the challenges this card qualifies for:

• Sweet Stampin' Challenge Blog gave us the theme "Spring is in the Air" and told us to interpret it however we wanted to.
• Crazy 4 Challenges also asked us to think "Spring."
• One more... Our Creative Corner Challenge's theme is "Spring/Easter."
• Paper Sundaes challenged us to use paper piecing somewhere on our project.
• Pile It On's theme: "Furry Friends."
• Wags 'n Whiskers is challenging us to "pop it up" and use dimension somewhere on our card.
• My sketch comes courtesy of Pals Paper Arts:

• And last, but not least, my colours are thanks to Just Us Girls:

I just received this cute image from Wags 'n Whiskers as part of my Sketch Saturday win a few weeks ago and thought it would be perfect for all of these challenges:

Recipe - Stamps: Some Bunny Loves You (Wags 'n Whiskers)  Ink: Versafine Onyx Black  Paper: Close to Cocoa, Certainly Celery, So Saffron, Bashful Blue, Assorted SU! DP, Whisper White  Accessories: Clear embossing powder, Argyle embossing folder, Copics, Bashful Blue satin ribbon, buttons, hemp twine, slot punch, paper piercer, dimensionals

I paper pieced her dress and hair bow, the flower and his shirt and tie.  I used dimensionals to pop up the flower as well as the entire image panel.  I will admit that this image is a bit more "cutesy" than I normally use but I think it makes a really nice spring-y card.  :)

Don't forget to stop and check out The Shabby Tea Room's new challenge as well as The Curtain Call's Color Challenge!  See you tomorrow!

Keep It Simple? Me?

I have a VERY difficult time with simple.  I love layers and ribbon and embellishments and...and...and... the more the merrier!  This week's challenge at Pals Paper Arts?  "For the week's challenge, the Pals are sending you a "KISS" (Keep It Simple, Sweetie)  The following are suggested guidelines for creating a KISS -able card:

• Clean with lots of 'white' space
• Simple Designs
• Minimum time to create
• Limited layers and embellishments 

I thought I would give it my best shot but I knew it wasn't going to be as "clean and simple" as they probably would like it to be!  I managed to combine two more challenges with this card.

• Cute Card Thursday - "This week we want to see your cards or projects that feature something metal on them...brads, charms, if it's metal, we want to see it!"
• Yesterday I gave you a sneak peek at Riley's Color Dare:

And here goes...

It just looks so...so... bland.  I stamped the image on Pale Plum with Versamark and then heat embossed it with black.  I Swiss Dotted the bottom bit and then sponged Rich Razzleberry ink over the top to give it some depth.  I added some black satin ribbon, a ribbon slider, adhesive pearls, button and then paper pierced around the edge.  I wasn't going to add the photo corners but it really looked like it needed "something."  I know, I know - that's when you should just leave it alone but... I couldn't!  I'm not sure I even *like* the photo corners. 

That's it for me today.  I have to get caught up on my laundry and do some paperwork so I'll see you tomorrow!

Well ~ I Tried...

... and, regretfully, I think I failed miserably.  Maybe I wasn't "feeling" the colors or the sketch or maybe my mojo just wasn't flowing today but his card is NOT one of my better ones.

I'm sure this has NOTHING to do with the nice folks over at The Color Dare or the lovely ladies at Pals Paper Arts - it is completely MY fault that this card doesn't do either one justice:

So - take a deep breath and prepare yourself...

Recipe - Paper: Creamy Caramel, Ruby Red, Whisper White, Bermuda Bay  Ink: Ruby Red, Bermuda Bay  Accessories: Marvy Uchida corner punch, paper piercer, white taffeta ribbon, button, twine, Cuttlebug embossing folders, sponge dauber, Martha Stewart border punch, slot punch, 1-3/4" circle punch, brads

That's all I'm going to say about this card.  Let's all hope the next one is MUCH better than this... ;)  Do I dare try again tonight???

*E.T.A.  In my despondence, I forgot to *thank* the team at the Color Dare for recognizing my submission last week as an honorable mention - I'm pretty excited about it!  If you would like to see which one it was, click here.