IB124 Cheery Cherry Hello

 Happy Thursday, peeps!  It's time for another Inspired By challenge, and I just LOVED this one!  Here's the photo prompt as well as the optional sketch; I did use both this week:

This is just a little notecard (again), because the little cherry images were so small, I thought they would get lost on a larger card...here we go:

I love this card so much, I don't want to send it away, LOL!  I began with a panel of Pool Party, embossed it with the Pinewood Planks EF, then sponged it with Smoky Slate.  It was adhered to a mat of Cherry Cobbler.  I then cut a banner from some Smoky Slate gingham using a Poppystamps die, and embellished it with three little cherries from a really old SU set, which I am thinking might have been an incentive set since I can't find it on Splitcoast Stampers:

I watercolored the cherries with some inks and an aquapainter, and colored the "hello" with a marker.  And I thought I'd share a quick tutorial about how I diecut the stitched circles!  I had stamped my images first, then realized that the die I wanted to use did not have an opening, so I couldn't center my design easily.  So here's my fix:

The die on the right is the one I want to use, but as I said, there is no opening, so I wasn't sure how I was going to center it, so I got the smallest circle die I owned that did have an opening; this one happens to be from SU's Stitched Shapes:

I centered the larger die over my stamped image and used a pencil to draw a circle, using the inner portion of the die as a guide:

I then centered my smaller die, face down, over the image, using the drawn circle as my guide, and ran it through my Big Shot:

And tada!  A nicely-centered design!  I guess ideally, you could diecut first and then stamp, but with smaller wood-mount stamps, as this one was, it would have been a challenge.  I was happy with this technique!

I hope you'll find some inspiration to play along with us at Inspired By this week!  Be sure to check out what the DT has for you as well!  And you might notice a NEW member on the Design Team....my sweet friend Lisa from My Paper Tales!  SO EXCITED!  Be sure to stop by and give her some love! Thanks for popping in today...enjoy your day and be blessed!

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	Country Occasions (ret)
Card stock & Papers	White Notecard, Whisper White, Pool Party, Cherry Cobbler, Neutrals DSP
Ink	Stazon Black, Cherry Cobbler, Calypso Coral, Garden Green, Smoky Slate
Accessories	Cherry Cobbler Seam Binding (ret), Dimensionals,
Tools	Big Shot, Pinewood Planks EF, Sponges, Greeting Tags Dies (Poppystamps), Stitched Circle Dies (Lil'Inker), Aquapainter, White Gel Pen (Zig), Smoky Slate Marker

RR132 Easter Squares

Happy Tuesday, everyone!  It's time for a new Retro Rubber Challenge, and this is a fun one for sure:

All those little squares had me running to my "retro" stash of stamps, and I came across this one called Country Occasions, and are you ready for this?  It's from 1996!  Yep, the little label says 1996!  An real oldie but goodie!  I paired with the lovely spring shades of Mint Macaron and Grapefruit Grove, so here we go:

I stamped each one of these little spring images in Memento Black, colored them with Blends, then diecut them with a Stitched Shape die.  They got popped up on another Stitched Shape diecut, Mint Macaron, which was also embossed.  Then the whole thing was adhered to a print panel on a square card.  I added some Grapefruit Grove ribbon and a wee little tag from Our Daily Bread Designs, punched out with a Tiny Tag punch!  These images are just so dear!  Here's so closer images:

On the inside, I used a sentiment from a Close to My Heart stamp that is from 2018:

What squares will you use on your Retro Rubber creation?  Remember that the stamps need to be at least a year old, and you must tell us the age!  Check out what the Design Team has come up with at the Retro Rubber blog!  Share yours with us too!  And thanks for popping in today!

Another sign of spring?  When your preying mantis cocoons hatch!  My great-nephew was great intrigued by these little critters! They saved them in a jar over the winter.....thank goodness they hatched outside!!

Enjoy your day and be blessed!

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	Country Occasions (1996, ret), Easter Animals (2018 Close to My Heart), Mini Tag Sentiments (Our Daily Bread Designs)
Card stock & Papers	Whisper White, Mint Macaron, Pincushion Collection DSP (BoBunny)
Ink	Memento Black, Calypso Coral
Accessories	Grapefruit Grove Narrow Grosgrain Ribbon, Dimensionals, Perle Cotton Thread
Tools	Big Shot, Stitched Shapes Dies, Perfect Polka Dot EF (ret), Tiny Tag Punch (ret), SU Blends in Mint Macaron, Smoky Slate, Calypso Coral and Pumpkin Pie