Celebrations

Two cards today, neither of which really makes me jump up & down, so I’ll be quick!  The first one is a birthday card for my niece, and it uses Laura’s sketch 55 from 2S4Y shown here:

I used some BG Lemonade papers with my SU Things I Love set; I am thinking some brighter papers would have been better!  Oh well, I blinged the images up with some rhinestones and added a little oomph on the inside:

The second card is for two SCS challenges, F4A19 and WT277, as well as Sharon’s Star Light, Star Bright challenge. F4A19 is to use a gold star on your project, and WT277 is to make a July 4th card without using red, white or blue; Sharon’s is to incorporate stars into your design.  I had an idea in my mind, which didn’t really translate to paper, but anyway, here it is:

and the inside:

This used MANY stamp sets, they will be listed at the end.  Eveything was stamped in Versamark and heat embossed with gold embossing powder.   TFL!!!

First card:

• Stamps:  Things I Love, Its Your Birthday
• Paper: WW, BG Lemonade, Basic Black, Vellum Cardstock
• Ink:  Stazon
• Acc:  3-flower Punch, Square Punches, Twill, Corner Rounder, Bling, dimensionals

Second card:

• Stamps:  July 4th, Season of Joy, SU; Playful Stars, KS Stamps; Cupcake Celebration, Star Prints, Vintage Picnic, PTI;
• Paper:  WW, Brushed Gold
• Ink:  Versamark
• Acc:  Gold cord, star punches, gold EP, gold brad, Word Window punch, dimensionals 
  
  

JUGS Challenge #33

Hooray for the Red, White and Blue!  Today’s JUGS challenge, hosted by Lisa,  is to use these patriotic colors in your creation in honor of Memorial Day!  You can add Kraft, too if you like!!  And it’s very appropriate for today, as May 15 is Armed Forces Day—a great way to remember all the brave men and women who serve our great country.

Tammy is hosting a PCP challenge this week, which is to do a shadowbox card!  She has a wonderful tutorial here, so I thought I would combine the challenges!  Shadowbox cards are so cool----they really add dimension to your creation, but they still fit in a standard-sized envelope! 

I remember my sweet friend Wendy had stamped some flag images for me a couple years ago, so I went searching in my folder and found I still had one!  I made my frame from some DCWV textured paper, did some embossing and sanding and came up with this:

There are all kinds of little things going on here:  star brads on the right side, buttons on the inside, Kitchen Sink stamped stars on the outside, and a neat little ribbon treatment on the left side:

And here’s a bird’s eye view:

(This view makes me queasy!)  So what will YOU make for this red, white and blue challenge?  Check out the JUGS blog for all the details, and share your creation too!  Can’t wait to see it!

Thanks for stopping by today!

Color Throwdown #83

Watch out!  Tammy is our CTD hostess this week and she always has some awesome colors up her sleeve!  Today is no exception!  She’s challenged us with the bold, beautiful colors of Melon Mambo, Marigold Morning, Wild Wasabi and Bermuda Bay! 

There is a sponsor at the CTD blog this week, so make sure you hop on over there to check out what’s going on!  Meanwhile, this is what I came up with:

 

If you were asleep before, you should be awake now!  This is one bright card, but I had fun making it!  All the sentiments and images are from Kitchen Sink Stamps; these images can be challenging to line up, but the final effect is worth the extra time----very realistic!  I wish you could see the glitter on these flowers—that makes them even more fun!  The word “spring” was stamped in Palette Noir and colored with a blender pen and inks.  Since I did not have any Marigold Morning ribbon, I substituted this year’s In Color, Crushed Curry---a pretty good match!

Now check out what the other CTD designers have come up with:

• Broni - Splashes of Watercolor
• Tammy - Stamp Happy
• Cathy - Crafty Thoughts
• Barbara - Paper Pursuits
• Danielle – Wild Dragonfly Designs
• Kristin - Mindless Creativity
• and our guest designer this month, Pam Speidel – Stampin’ with Serendipity

Stampin’ Royalty Challenge #5

This week the Royalty crew has challenged us to make Anything But a Card!  This morning, I fearfully stepped on the scale and my heart sank.  Since before Christmas, I have not been paying attention to my eating habits, and those bad habits have now exhibited themselves on various parts of my body!  Since I have an “event” coming up in March, I thought I had better get in gear and be a tad bit more disciplined.  I wanted to make a little fun journal where I could write down some thoughts and Bible verses when I want to eat but shouldn’t.  I grabbed a little spiral notebook from my stash, some brightly colored paper and inks and a couple of star stamps from PTI and Kitchen Sink:

There is nothing fancy about it other than some little doodad embellishments because it will probably go in my purse and get beat up, so it needed to be simple.  I have already started some thoughts on the inside:

And now that I have shared this with you and the whole blogging world, I guess you will have to keep me accountable!  My stomach is growling RIGHT NOW…..so I guess I’d better find something to do to distract it!  Maybe I’ll STAMP SOMETHING!!! :D

Have a great day!!!

Updated Oopsie

In my last post here, I said this card fulfilled the Kitchen Sink In the Garden Challenge....but I forgot I was only allowed to use KS stamps! And I had used a SU stamp. So I redid it, plus I wanted to fill you in a bit on how I did the image. This KS stamp is a 3-step stamp, so after I stamped my three images, I stamped the first image again on a post-it note and cut it out to make a mask. I placed the mask over my stamped image and stamped the leaves, then removed the mask. Then I stamped the ladybug in red & black. I took a clear yogurt lid and laid it over my image, and using my craft knife, cut around the lid, stopping where there was a leaf. Then I cut the leaves out by hand. I gave the flower a shadow by using my pastels and a q-tip; then I daubered the edges of my scallop circle to add a little depth. I thought the bottom right corner looked a little plain, so I added some punchouts, which will also qualify this for today's SCS Challenge--No Hardware!! I wanted my sentiment to be lined up a little differently so that it would fit the white space, so I actually cut it apart, so now I can align it any way I want! The beauty of clear stamps!
Thanks for visiting!

Grand Slam

No, this post is not about baseball! My card today fulfills three challenges, and I am also going to try my first tutorial!!! The tutorial is how to tie a "One-Hole Bow"; this is not my idea, it came from my upline, Pennie McCallum. If you have trouble with your ribbons, bows and knots sliding around on your card, check this out!



Here's my card. I want to have a ribbon going across the card where the white & green cardstock meet, under my sentiment.





Using my Anywhere Hole Punch and hammer, I punched a hole in my card. I used my punch because my crop-a-dile would not go in far enough.







Lay your ribbon across your card, across the hole.






Very carefully flip your card over keeping the ribbon in the same position. Put one tail end of the ribbon through the hole from the inside of the card.






Now put the other tail through the same hole. It helps if you pull the first tail to the side a little to give you enough room for both tails to go through.






Flip your card back over. Arrange the ribbons so that each tail is on opposite sides of the ribbon that is crossing your card. I like to call them "rabbit ears"!!






Now tie your knot over top of the crossed ribbon. A single knot is usually enough. Now your ribbon and your knot are secure, without glue!!

My finished card! This card fulfills Beate's Weekend Sketch; Sharon's Going Buggy Challenge; and Kitchen Sink's June In The Garden Challenge. And thanks again to Pennie for showing me this wonderful technique. Try it out and let me know how you like it!

• Stamps: Boho Backgrounds, Daisy by Kitchen Sink
• Paper: WW, Certainly Celery, Cameo Coral
• Ink: Apricot Appeal, Cameo Coral, Regal Rose, Ruby Red, Certainly Celery, Garden Green, Craft White, Real Red, Basic Black
• Acc: Ribbon, Nesties, Anywhere Hole Punch

Edited to add: Ooops! I was not allowed to use anything but Kitchen Sink stamps for their challenge.....so, I will make a NEW card without the Boho Backgrounds!!! Reading the directions is important!!!

A Challenge--Finally

I finally got some time to stamp today, and tried to edit my photos using a free trial download of Photoshop Elements. Not a good idea. I was extremely frustrated and wasted a lot of time. I went back to my old program and was done in five minutes. I have tried the Picasa from Google and there are things I like about it but I can't add my signature, so......back to the drawing board. Anyway, this first post is for today's Sketch Challenge. It is a birthday card for my pastor and I know he likes clean, modern calligraphy style script. This isn't it. I don't have anything like that (Wordsworth would be good!) So I just took my new Kitchen Sink stamps and did some leaves around a retired SU sentiment. The backgrounder is Leaves from Cornish Heritage Farms, and the other panel is Tres Chic, also by SU. The birthday sentiment is PTI's Mixed Messages. Colors used are Mellow Moss, River Rock, Sahara Sand, Confetti White & Always Artichoke. The single leaf is on a dimensional. I hope he likes it!





This is a card I stamped quite a while ago, but never posted. I needed a get-well card for someone in my small group. I love these coffee images from Crafty Secrets, but I wanted the little coffee bean to be facing the paper-pieced percolator. So I stamped her on a window sheet in Black Stazon, cut the sheet in a circle with my CB and flipped the image over and mounted it on a WW circle. The twill is from Taylored Expressions; paper is Prints in Almost Amethyst.
TFL!!!

Kitchen Sink Sample

I received my first Kitchen Sink stamp set yesterday, the Daisy. I was a little intimidated by the sheer size of the images! I have done two-step stamping, but never three- or four-step stamping! I began just by playing around with the images, and the play image turned out better than I thought, so I went ahead and made it into a card....not the best, perhaps, but certainly passable! I just need to "play" some more to get the feel of them! Gotta run, I actually have to work at my real job today! TFL!
Stamps: Daisy, Itty Bitty Background
Paper: Shimmery White, WW, Rose Red, Basic Grey Boxer
Ink: Blush Blossom, Pretty in Pink, Regal Rose, Rose Red, Mellow Moss, Garden Green
Acc: Dauber, Rose Grosgrain, Pink Taffeta