MOJO154 and Curtain Call 45 Thank You

I think it's been a long time since I did a MOJO Monday sketch.  I can't really say what kept me away.  I really look forward to Monday when I get in to work and check the sketch for that week (don't tell the boss).  I'm just glad to get back in to the MOJO swing of things.  For this card I combined the MOJO154 sketch with the Curtain Call 45 color challenge.

There's that crumb cake again!  I can't seem to resist a challenge when I see crumb cake.  And this week I also get to use concord crush.  I believe I have gushed lately about how much I love that color too.  So here's my take on the sketch and colors.

Once again I chose to make this card 4 1/4 inches square.  It's such an adorable size.  If you haven't tried it, you should.  It's really the cutest thing.  And, it fits in an A2 envelope, so no need to worry about extra postage in a square envelope.  (And what's up with that, by the way?).

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have time to stamp today!

A Little Chalkboard Technique

I've wanted to try the chalkboard technique ever since I saw the tutorial on Splitcoast many moons ago.  For some reason I never got around to it.  Then I decided to attempt it with this card.

Although I like the soft look of the image there a few things I have a problem with.  The first is the "soft look."  The very nature of using the pastels to color in the image means that you're going to get a lot of pastel dust everywhere on your card.  The instructions say to use a swiffer to wipe away the excess.  The swiffer works pretty well removing the excess dust, but there is a hint that remains around the stamped image.  Kind of like a shadow, it sort of creates that fuzzy, dreamy quality, but it's kind of bugging me.  The second problem I have is that you can't really touch the card without getting pastels on your fingers.  I think I can resolve that pretty easily by spraying it with hairspray or some kind of fixative in the future.  And the third thing is sort of related to the first thing.  As I was using the swiffer to wipe off the excess pastel dust, I experimented with rubbing directly on the stamped image.  Maybe I was rubbing too exhuberantly, but some of the pastel wore off which is why you see some color missing from the stems and he flowers.  Overall, I like the look of the technique, but I think I need to experiment more.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have time to stamp today!

PPA57 Thank You

Once again, Margaret Moody has given us a really great sketch over at the Pals Paper Arts blog this week.

I'm fairly certain that I was subliminely influenced by the new colors and layout of the PPA blog, because I chose to make my card using basic black, poppy parade and very vanilla.  When I saw the sketch, I had it in my head that I wanted to use those colors and as a bonus, it gave me an excuse to break out my Newsprint dsp from Stampin' Up! 

Oh, the power of suggestion!  In any event, I really like how this one turned out.  To make sure that the flower panel really popped, I inked it up with Versamark and embossed it with black embossing powder.  It's really quite dramatic in real life.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have time to stamp today!

Matchbox Favors

I love making favors and for some reason, whenever I do I always seem to reach for my matchbox sizzix die.  Here are a couple I made recently.

I made these for a very sweet lady who is gathering soon for a reunion with some of her college friends.  She told me they all met when they were freshman in 1961 and try to get together every three or four years.  How sweet!  Hopefully her friends will like these!

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have time to stamp today!

MTSC88 and CTD107

I love a card with a lot of layers.  That heaviness that the layers give the card feel somehow satisfying when you handle the card.  So when I saw Mercy's Tuesday Sketch Challenge this week, I knew I had to give it a go.  Then I saw the fabulous colors from the folks over at the Color Throwdown and I set to work.

For some reason, whenever I see layers like this I want to drag out my adorable Janome Sew Mini and zig zag some stitching on my cards.  So today I did!  I just love that little machine.  So glad I bought it!

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have time to stamp today!

Color Lab Challenge 7

It’s Thursday and time for another challenge from the Color Lab. I love the colors this week.

I seem to be on a crumb cake kick lately. It’s really a great color to work with as a card base and goes so nicely with lots of other colors as well. For this color challenge, I got to pair it with garden green (which I almost never use!), wild wasabi and chocolate chip. It’s a great combo of nice earthy colors – give it a try!

I decided to use the Sweet Sunday sketch challenge for my layout and I added those adorable clear flower-shaped buttons for a little more visual interest.

Thanks for visiting today and don’t forget to pop on over to the Color Lab and create something! We’d love to see what you do.

MOJO153 Almost

I had a really nice idea to make an autumn themed card using this week's MOJO sketch. 

My card was all put together.  I embossed some really nice leaves with copper embossing powder, I had copper brads, I used chocolate chip cardstock (one of my faves).  In short, I thought I had it all going on.  But once I really had a chance to look at it, I thought "blech."  What a mess.  So back to the drawing board I went.  Here's my second attempt:

Not only is this card not anywhere near an autumn theme, I have taken quite a bit of poetic license with the sketch.  I hope I'm not in trouble, but Julee always says that we should have fun with the sketches!  And I did have fun with this one.  It's very spring-like.  Go figure!

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have time to stamp today!

My First Halloween Card in 2010

The other day I was going through some stamp sets when I stumbled on my Halloween stamp set stash (say that five times fast!).  Now, I'm not sure why, but I just love all things Halloween.  I was never really into trick-or-treating when I was a kid.  Don't get me wrong, I loved the candy, I just didn't love the whole "knocking on the door and pretending to be excited when you screamed "trick or treat" at the exhausted neighbor who had already had enough of the candy" thing.  Go ahead, call me the Scrooge of Halloween.  I can take it.

BUT, I love Halloween decorations.  The scarier the better.  Which is probably why I love this stamp set so much.

I mean look at this guy.  He's got sunken eyes and bats for hair!  How awesome is that?  He's even got a jack-o-lantern coming out of his cheek!  I'm sure this is the first of many Halloween themed things I'll make this year.  I just can't help myself.  And special thanks to the Fall-To Layout Sketch 80 that provided the inspiration for the layout.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have time to stamp today!

 

Crafty Thank You

Continuing my most recent tradition of making cards including crumb cake cardstock, I made this card using one of the Anni-Verve-sary sketch challenges last week.  I needed a thank you card to send to my sister and her family for entertaining me recently when I visited them down the cape.

We had fabulous weather and we had a great time kayaking and just hanging out at the beach.  I got to  introduce them to a great (and fabulous) restaurant that they had never been to, the Brewster Fish House.  And on my last night there, we had some yummy steamers and steaks on the grill.  Gosh, I love summer.  Pretty soon, fall will be here and we'll have to wait until next year for things like steamers and corn on the cob.  {Sigh}

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have time to stamp today!

FTL104 Birthday

Ok, as I sit here posting this card I am watching the Red Sox play the Toronto Blue Jays and they are losing big time.  BIG TIME.  To an embarrassing degree.  So, I'm going to ignore what's happening on the tv and show you my clean and simple card that I made using the Fall-To Layout sketch challenge.  Warning:  this photo is freakishly disproportionate.

It's like looking at a Frankentstein head.  Really big on top then it gets strangely smaller at the bottom.  Nothing seemed to be going right with the lighting in my light box, and my card placement was just off, but after much (unsuccessful) fiddling I just had to run with what I've got here.  I've decided to blame it on bad Red Sox karma. 

Anyway, I really appreciate your taking a look at my card, and I hope you have time to stamp today!

Color Lab Challenge 6

It’s Thursday and time for another challenge from the Color Lab. This week we’ve got some really fabby colors to work with.

I am a huge fan of Old Olive, so any day I can use it is a good day. And this time I get to pair it with the retired color Almost Amethyst. (A unusual color combo for me, but I’m game)! Of course, our inspiration picture shows off the colors of this challenge beautifully and I almost decided to go with a floral them so that I could combine pretty colored flowers with certainly celery stems. But when I decided to use this Verve sketch, the card lead me in a different direction altogether.

It’s funny how you spend some time thinking about how you want your card to look, you get busy putting it together, then all of a sudden the card pipes up and says “hey, I think this would look better.” I think in this case I was right to listen. I like the clean and simple look of this one.

Thanks for visiting today and don’t forget to pop on over to the Color Lab and create something! We’d love to see what you do.

Curtain Call Act 43 and Card and Things 45

I have this wonderful old drafting table that I use in my stamp room.  It's big and square and gives me plenty of room to spread my stuff out.  I use a self-healing mat in case I want to cut something with my craft knife and I put a sheet of 11 x 17 copy paper on top as a blotter.  I test out my stamps on the blotter and I make notes about measurements on it.  I also use the edges to write down various color challenges that I come across in case I want to try them.

On Sunday I came across this color challenge over at Stacey's Stamping Stage:

Although I wrote it on my blotter, I thought there was no way I was going to try it.  I had no idea even where to begin.  Although I've recently developed a certain fondness for Pacific Point and Tangerine Tango and I have always loved Kiwi Kiss, I just couldn't see myself coming up with something even remotely attractive.  I'm still not sure that I did.

That's right folks.  Tuesday night in my stamp room I found myself looking at the color challenge wondering if I could do it.  I looked through my stash and found some patterned paper that came pretty close to Tangerine Tango and went from there.  I embossed the big flower in the center with clear embossing powder since the stamped image was a little blotchy.  I also found the Cards & Things sketch challenge and decided to use that for my layout.  And thus, the card you see here was born.  I can't say I love it, but it's not half bad.  I've always liked this patterned paper and I'm glad (at least) that I finally got a chance to use it.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have time to stamp today!

I Think I Made A Baby Card

On second thought maybe not.

I don’t know many babies (not any more at least), so I don't have a lot of experience making bay cards, but when I saw this color challenge from Scrapmaster’s Paradise I thought it would go awfully well with a boy card. Then I realized that I hadn’t really inked up my Fox & Friends stamp set all that much and with the help of this week’s Fall-To Layout sketch challenge this card was born. I guess it would be ok to welcome a boy baby into the world, but I’m not entirely sure.

But anyway, thanks for stopping by and I hope you have time to stamp today!

Anni-Verve-sary Sketch and a belated color challenge

I feel like I have been SO out of the stamping loop this week!  I've been on vacation and I was away the first few days this week and since I've been back home there seems to be an awful lot to do around the house.  Why is it that a vacation from work always seems to turn into work around the house?  I need a vacation from my vacation!

Anyway I decided to give the sketches in honor of Verve's new release and anniversary a try.  There's five altogether and I'm not sure I can get them all done, but I'll give it the old college try.  I also decided to pair this card with last week's Curtain Call Act 42 color challenge.  Although I'm too late to "enter" it officially, I really like the colors.

And can I just say how much I love this "wish big" stamp?  I've used it a ton already.  I think it works for birthday cards, congratulation cards and probably more that I haven't thought of yet!

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have time to stamp today!

Color Lab Challenge 5

I've just come back from a little Long Island adventure in time for the Color Lab challenge.  I was visiting my niece in Quogue, NY and I had forgotten how much energy a 22 year old has!  Let's just say it's good to be back home!  Now on to the challenge.

This was another doozy for me because it had five colors.  Luckily I love all the colors so it was fun putting them all together.  I especially love how good basic gray and daffodil delight look together.

I used the Splitcoast Sketch Challenge 292.  When I first saw the sketch, I thought it was so interesting and I wanted to do it but had no idea how it was going to shape up.  Then I figured it would be perfect for this color challenge.  However, I think the three panels on the bottom need a little jazzing up.  Maybe a little hand-drawn border or something.  I saw that once on a card when I was surfing in blogland and thought it added a nice touch.  But anyway, I like it well enough the way it is.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a chance to join us for this challenge at the Color Lab. 

MTSC85 and {Sort Of} a Color Challenge

This week has been absurdly busy for me.  I've had so many errands to run after work that today (Friday) is the first day I've managed to make it home while it's still light out.  As a result I haven't really spent a lot of time stamping and tonight I was determined to make a card following a challenge or two.

I managed to follow Mercy's Tuesday Sketch Challenge and I was trying to follow the Curtain Call Act 41 Color Challenge, but after I put the card together I realized I was supposed to use Whisper White instead of Very Vanilla.  Oops.  I really wanted to use the twill tape I have in my stash and that is, of course, vanilla in color, so my {sort of} color challenge card was born. While I was making this, I also realized that I don't have enough oval nesties!  I wanted to use a different size scallop and regular oval, but I didn't have the correct sizes, so I settled for this wider version.  Nothing like a little quality time in your craft room (that is no doubt loaded with supplies you've forgotten you have) to make you realize that you DON'T HAVE something that you CAN'T live without!!

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have time to stamp today!

Color Lab Challenge 4

I'm not ashamed to say that when I first saw this Color Lab challenge, I was a little intimidated.  Excited, but intimidated.

I usually make fairly simple cards with a limited amount of colors, but I welcomed the challenge presented here to make a card with five colors.  FIVE!  There's nothing like stepping outside of your comfort zone!

So I gave it my best shot, and I've got to say that I'm okay with the result.  (In case your eyes are crossing looking for the Certainly Celery, it's in the stem of the flower behind the Happy Birthday sentiment).  I've actually been meaning to make a card for a friend that used earthy colors and I think this is pretty earthy.  Hopefully, my friend will think so too!

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have time to visit the Color Lab and make a card!

ETA:  Special thanks to my friend Sylvia who told me today that I forgot to include the picture of my card!  Thanks Stella!!!  Mea culpa!

Butternut Sage RAK

The other day I received this lovely card from my upline Donna.

Her cards are always so elegant and this is no exception.  The flower is so delicate and the red leaves provide just the right pop of color.  AND the new Jewels Basic Rhinestone that she used make me want to open the package I have in my stash!

But what I really love about this card are the wonderful words of encouragement from Donna that you can't see.  I assume all of us card-maker-bloggers toil over our creations partly because we love creating cards, partly because we love to share what we do, and partly because we are looking for encouragement from our peers.  And when we receive encouragement from someone who we consider to be the a master of the craft of card-making/creating, it just validates what we do!  So a big, heartfelt THANK YOU to Donna of Butternut Sage fame whose encouragement makes me feel like what I do is worthwhile!  Thanks Donna.