Curtain Call 71 - Dare to be Fabulous

Hold onto your hats, So Saffron is everywhere!  I have nothing against So Saffron, and for some reason it keeps cropping up in color challenges this week.  I used it the other day with this card, and here it is again with the Curtain Call color challenge!

It's a great color and I'm happy to use it, especially since I've been neglecting it of late.  Sometimes I find myself reaching for the same colors over and over again, forgetting about all the other great colors that I've got.  I guess that's one of the good things about doing color challenges.  They make you remember that there are loads of colors and you don't need to use the same things all the time.

For this card I used the Fabulous Flowers stamp set that is retired, but still fabulous!  I stamped the big flower twice in So Saffron, cut them out so that the layers would be different sizes and then sponged the edges in More Mustard.  I added an Antique Brad to make in the center of the flowers to make it a little more interesting!

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

Color Dare 98 Birthday

I do so love a clean and simple card. 

When I saw the color challenge this week at the Color Dare, I thought that these were the perfect colors to showcase with a very simple card.  The colors are Perfect Plum, Always Artichoke and a neutral of choice.

For my layout I went to "the binder."  I've mentioned a time or two before that I print out sketch challenges and keep them in a binder for when I need inspiration.  I turn to it often when I'm making a card.  I keep one section with FTL sketches and I find that part especially useful when I'm contemplating a color challenge with three or fewer colors.

So I made this card using the FLT 13 sketch from September 2008.   The Pocket Silhouette stamp set is perfect for it!

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

Friday Mashup #33

Another great color challenge got me thinking again.  This time it was the Friday Mashup blog that got my creative juices flowing!

I think it's been a while since I used So Saffron and I thought it looked great with Early Espresso and Cherry Cobbler.  Originally, I planned to use the latest FTL sketch for my layout, but in the end something else emerged!

I added a rectangular sentiment panel and completely forgot the bow at the top!  Oh well, in the end I did manage to use some scallops which means that this qualifies for the Pals Paper Arts challenge this week!  Serendipity, I say to myself!
Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have to stamp today!

ColourQ 73

Once again I have challenged myself to try a color challenge that is WAY out of my comfort zone.  I'm beginning to realize that this is a good thing to do.  Even though you may not be ecstatic with the result of your efforts, it's a great way to discover what you are capable of.  And every time you try one, you understand yourself and your style a little better.  So without further ado, I must announce that I tried the ColourQ 73 color challenge.

The swatch looks great and I was intrigued by it right away.  And in a not-so-strange episode of deja vu, the Rich Razzleberry called to mind my Best Blossoms stamp set.  The only problem was that I no longer had any Brocade Blue or Brilliant Blue cardstock or ink!  What's a girl to do?

She subsitutes the next best thing, that's what!  In this case I used Marina Mist (for the Brocade Blue) and Pacific Point (for the Brilliant Blue).  As I was assembling this card I was not at all sure that I used these colors to the best, but once I saw the finished product I was ok with it.  The flowers look great (as usual) and I popped them up with dimensionals to make them a little more interesting.  These are not colors that I would ever have come up with on my own, which is why color challenges are so great.  I used to be terrified of them, but now I know that they are a great way to challenge yourself.  If you shy away from them like I used to, then I highly recommend that you give one a try.  You may be surprised at what you can do!

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

Color Lab Challenge 30

It's Thursday and time for another challenge from the ColorLab!

Aren't these colors yummy?  They remind me that spring is just around the corner.  (At least I hope it is)!  For my card I decided to go clean and simple again (surprise, surprise) and to dig out an old favorite stamp set that I haven't used in quite a while which has a pretty, spring-time stamp.

Of course, I'm a sucker for Crumb Cake so it was no trouble at all to incorporate it here along with the Stamping 411 sketch.  Plus I got to use some of the delicious Crumb Cake seam binding ribbon and a big Crumb Cake button.  I used the retired Artfully Asian stamp set that I admit I bought primarily because I loved the font!  Sounds crazy, I know, but it's true.  Luckily as it turns out I liked the floral and leafy images as well.

Thanks for stopping by today and don't forget to pop on over to the ColorLab, check out the fabulous colors this week, and create something!  We'd love to see what you do!

MOJO179 and SPCC88 Make Me Smile

I've really been reaching outside my comfort zone lately with color challenges.  Today I decided to give the Scrapmaster's Paradise Color Combos challenge a try.

I love Sahara Sand and Rose Red.  But Daffodil Delight?  Not so much.  I'm just not a yellow person, especially a bright one like that, but I wanted to see what I could come up with.  I thought the MOJO 179 sketch would be a good layout.

Originally I planned to use the Medallion stamp for the focal point of my card, but as I got going the card had other plans.  It's funny how that happens sometimes.  I've often heard authors speak about their books in the same way.  Somehow the {imaginary} characters in the novel are driving the storyline rather than the author!  As strange as that sounds, I find the same thing happens to me when I sit down to make a card.  I start out with one thing in mind, and end up doing something completely different because the card told me so!

Despite the unusual color combo, I'm pretty happy with how this turned out.  It's quite cheery and it's got a bit of bling!  I also discovered that the flower outline stamp from the Cottage Garden stamp set is a perfect match for the small flower in the Island Floral Bigz die.  I discovered that quite by accident as I was rooting around my desk for something to make the flower element a little more interesting.  At first, I just sponged the edges of the Island Floral small flower with Rose Red but thought it looked a little boring.  I happened to have my stamp-a-ma-jig nearby which had the Cottage Garden flower image stamped on it and decided to see if they matched up.  They did, so I stamped away, added a rhinestone brad, and was done!

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

An Anniversary Challenge

The other day I discovered a new (to me) challenge blog.  It's called Picture Perfect Creations and I decided to give it a try.  The challenge this week was a color challenge with an anniversary theme.

I really liked the colors, but I hesitated joining the challenge at first because after an extensive search of my stamp sets, I realized that I didn't have an anniversary one!  I finally found one that I thought would be an appropriate sentiment and along with the Pals Paper Arts sketch challenge this week, I set to work.

I found this sketch a little intimidating at first, but once I had a chance to take a good look at it, I was able to break down the elements of it into manageable pieces!

I love Basic Gray (which is what attracted me to this color challenge to begin with), and when paired with a bright color like Melon Mambo I'm helpless to resist!  I'm also gaining a new appreciation for Garden Green.  I've not used it very much, but it's really a very nice color and makes an excellent stem!!

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

Paper Players 35 Laugh A Little

I think that the colors of the Paper Players sketch challenge graphic influenced the colors I chose for the card that I did for that challenge!

I started poking around my stash of supplies and came across my Cottage Wall designer paper, which uses Rich Razzleberry primarily.  I finally bought the coordinating Cottage Wall stamp set and haven't really used it much, so I thought I would use it for this challenge.

I really struggled with the two floral images in the sketch layout.  I know that I don't necessarily need to follow the sketch to the letter and use floral images, but since I was using the Cottage Wall dp it seemed simple enough to add the flower from the corresponding stamp set.  But I didn't want to use two flowers of the same size.  So I ended up adding a white button with a little bit of crochet thread for the smaller image.  As you can probably tell, I really like using crochet thread!

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

Curtain Call 70 Butterfly

I thought that the color challenge this week over at the Curtain Call was quite interesting.  Intimidating, but interesting!  I wasn't sure I was up for it, but I really liked the idea of using Tempting Turquoise, which I have not used in a while.  So I bravely gave it a try.

See what I mean?  Tempting Turquoise and Tangerine Tango in the same card?  I must be crazy to give this a try!  But I set to work and thought I'd ink up my Flight of the Butterfly stamp set for this card.  Those curly-q sentiments are so versatile and thoughtful I figured they would provide some inspiration.

I went for a pretty clean and simple look.  I briefly thought about adding a button or something but in the end decided to keep it clean.  I'm not sure I like it, but at least I gave it the old college try!

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

My First Utah Divas International Challenge

Every once in a while, as was blog surfing, I would come upon a card inspired by the Utah Divas International Challenge.  Well, today I decided to try out their sketch challenge as well as their Think Spring Color Challenge.

I was also inspired by Vicky Hayes, who has been using this Punch Bunch stamp quite a bit lately.  I find that sometimes when you get a new stamp set, you don't always realize all its possibilities right away.  A little inspiration from a fellow blogger is just the thing!  Thanks Vicky!!

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

Inkspirations 58 and Viva La Verve

I've had a busy week.  It seems like every night this week I've had something to do after work.  So it's nice to be home tonight and spend some time in my stamp room thinking about creative things.  One thing I checked out was the Inkspirations challenge and I have to say at first glance I was very intimidated.

These are not colors that I would ordinarily pair together.  My first reaction was that I would move on to something else, but the more I looked at it the more I wanted to give it a try.

So I searched around until I found a Verve challenge that I thought would work nicely with this color combo.

Maybe it was the stitching.  Maybe it was the skewed panels.  But something made me want to give this a try.  And I thought that the Inkspirations color challenge was just the thing.

So, I inked up my Seeing Stars stamp set (for the first time) and set to work.  I'm actually really pleased at how this turned out.  Despite my original misgivings I think these colors are fabulous together.  It could be a masculine card (and we all know how hard those are to do), or it could just be a cool card with modern colors!  What I especially like is that the Early Espresso panel has plenty of room to add a sentiment depending on what I might need later!  
Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have time to stamp today!

Color Lab Challenge 29

It's Thursday and time for another challenge from the Color Lab!

When I first saw this challenge included Rich Razzleberry, I immediately thought of my Best Blossoms stamp set.  I know this set has been retired for quite some time, but I love it and can't stop using it!  The flower is so awesome and the little leaves are an almost perfect match for the Little Leaves Sizzlit.  I often find myself reaching for this stamp set when I want a bold flower image.  (For some reason,this stamp picks up ink really well and I can almost always count on a good image).

I really wanted to go with a clean simple card for this challenge.  The colors are so bright that I didn't want to muddy up my card with lots of layers.  So I used my Little Leaves sizzlit to cut out the leaves in Pear Pizzazz.  I stamped the flower in Rich Razzleberry and cut it out with my snips.  The tricky part here was the Old Olive outline and sentiment.  I love how it came out!  Lots of white space.  Yum!

Thanks for stopping by today and don't forget to pop on over to the ColorLab, check out the fabulous colors this week, and create something.  We'd love to see what you do!

SSSC104 Curtain Call 69 Birthday

Of course the Curtain Call color challenge this week was right up my alley.  It had Crumb Cake in it after all!  And to make things even better it had Cherry Cobbler:  the best red in the ENTIRE WORLD!!  After a short deliberation, I settled on the Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge for my layout. 

My stash of birthday cards is still rather depleted, so I thought I'd add to it with this card.  I still haven't figured out what happened to all my birthday cards.  I'm sure I don't know that many people that I would have run out, but apparently I do!

Aren't these cakes adorable?  I've always loved this type of stamp where a similar image is repeated in a row.  I used to have one that was gifts with different wrapping and another one was different ornaments.  I enjoyed stamping and coloring each individual image.  For this card, I tried to keep it simple by keeping the color to a minimum.

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

MOJO178 Paper Players 34 Dreams

I have a niece that is currently living on Long Island and is trying to find a job in the public relations or marketing field.  She's so bright and has such a sparkling personality, I'm sure that she will find something soon!  Every so often, I like to send her a little note to let her know that I'm thinking of her and to remind her that some day the perfect job will come along.  This week the Paper Players and MOJO sketch challenge provided my inspiration for a card to send to her.

It's no secret that Crumb Cake is one of my favorite colors and when paired with earthy colors like Cherry Cobble and Cajun Craze I am transported!

For this card I went way into the vault and used some Spring Flowers dsp from many moons ago (the dotted crumb cake panel) and some "rust" embossing powder (the center part of the medalion stamp).  The embossing powder is so old that if I tell you how long I've had it, I may accidently give away my age!!!

I'm pretty pleased with how this turned out.  I love when that happens!

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

Inkspirations 57 Thank You

For the last few days I have been eyeing my Lap of Luxury dp.  I never thought I would like it so much, but I suspect that I do because I really like Concord Crush.  When Stampin' Up! first introduced Concord Crush, I wasn't too thrilled with it.  Purple just isn't really my thing.  But I've grown to like it.  It reminds me of grape soda, which I LOVE.  I know that seems weird, but there you have it!

So I decided to use both Concord Crush and Lap of Luxury when I made this card for the Inkspirations challenge.

I even cut out the floral image here which qualifies me for Our Creative Corner's Cut It Out challenge.  I was a little apprehensive about cutting this image out, but it really wasn't all that difficult when it came down to it.  I should have adhered it with dimensionals to really make it stand out, but I used glue dots instead.  Rats!  In real life you can see the difference in the layers, but it's hard to see in the picture.

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

SSC190 Thank You

I thought the Stamping 411 sketch challenge this week was too nice to pass up.  I had visions of chocolate chip and stitched layers in my head when I first saw it!

Strangely enough, what I envisioned in my head is not exactly what I ended up with!  How does that happen???  For this card I tried a different watercoloring technique than I've been using lately. Since I used my blender pens, I'm not even sure that it could technically be called watercoloring, but I don't know what the official name should be.

I'm not entirely sure that this "watercoloring" technique produces better results than the one I've been using lately.  That one involves using markers and the watercoloring brush to push colors around the image.  The result is a rather bold image.  The one I used here uses the blender pens dipped onto the ink pad.  It produces a softer image which is not necessarily a bad thing, but I think I like the bold images a little better.  I suppose each one has its own place depending on what I want the end result to be!
Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have time to stamp today!

FTL127 Birthday Surprise!

On Thursday afternoon my sister called me at work to tell me that my nephew would like me to make a gift card holder for him to bring to a birthday party and that (if I was willing) she would come by my office on Friday to pick it up.  Normally, this is the sort of thing I love to do, but I was afraid to say yes because I had a meeting after work and I knew I wouldn't be home until after 9:00 pm and the chances of me being creative at that hour are pretty slim!  But somehow I found myself saying yes!  I was pretty sure that I had one already that would be perfect, but then she told me that he would be giving two gift cards!  I don't have any kind of gift card holder that holds two!  I managed to convince her that I needed more time and she agreed to pick it up at my house on Saturday.  Whew!  That was close!

So, I cleverly decided to use the FTL sketch challenge layout this week to make a birthday card/gift card combo.  (The inside has spots to hold two gift cards).

Some weeks ago, the ColorLab challenge was to use Rose Red, Blushing Bride, and Soft Suede.  On Friday I came across the card I made for that challenge and rememberd how much I loved how the colors really made that card shine.  So I used those colors again here.

My sister told me this gift would be for a sweet 16 party and I regretfully told her that I didn't have any stamps that said "sweet 16" in any way, shape or form, so I would have to make a regular birthday card.  But when I sat down to make this card I remembered that I recently got the Billboard Sizzix decorative strip die and that combined with the numbers stamp from the Bring on the Cake stamp set, I could easily make my own sweet 16 sentiment!  I'm really pleased with how this came out!  I hope they both like it too!

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

PPA80 Vintage Vogue

I've been thinking a lot about vintage cards lately so when I saw the challenge this week at Pals Paper Arts, I thought it was some kind of divine intervention!  The challenge is all about vintage and the design team encourages us all to "distress, smudge, and layer" to our heart's content!  I think I did them all with this one!

I love this Vintage Vogue stamp set and I'm not sure why I don't use it more.  Actually I do.  It's because I've got a zillion other stamp sets that I love just as well and there aren't enough days in the year to use them all!  At least I got to use it here!

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

Color Lab Challenge 28

It's Thursday and time for another challenge from the ColorLab!

It's nearly Valentine's Day and this color challenge was the perfect way to incorporate another adorable Valentine treat!  I came across this tutorial recently from My Therapy, My Creations and knew that it would be perfect for these colors.

How cute is this?  And my version sports a three-inch circle so you can put quite a bit of booty in there!

Thanks for stopping by today and don't forget to pop on over to the ColorLab, check out the colors this week, and create something!  We'd love to see what you do!

MOJO 177 and Colour Q 71

I have got to admit that the color challenge this week at the Colour Q was quite a challenge!

Don't get me wrong.  The pinks are all gorgeous, but it was difficult to incorporate them all into the same card and have them all seem different from one another!  And as if this challenge wasn't enough of a challenge, I thought I'd give this week's MOJO sketch challenge a go!

Triangles are just not my thing!  But I gamely gave it a try!

Now you see what I mean about all those pinks!  In case you're wondering, the long panel is Blushing Bride, the triangle and button (and highlights on the tissue paper flower) are Pretty in Pink and the "peace" arrow is pink pirouette.  I managed to squeeze in something new to me as well:  the adorable tissue paper flower. I originally was going to do a round piece of cardstock with a sentiment, but I thought this card needed some dimension, so I tried this multi-dimensional flower instead.  It's quite adorable in real life, but there's no way this card is getting into an envelope voluntarily!

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

Growing Green Water Coloring

I thought I'd try my hand at watercoloring again.  There is something about the technique that continues to elude me, but I will keep trying until I get it right.  And for some reason the colors this week at the Just Add Ink challenge reminded me that I hadn't tried it in a while.

For some reason when I saw the Rose Red, I thought of the rose in the Growing Green stamp set.  I'm not sure what the reason is behind that connection, but there you have it!  The Waltzingmouse sketch provided my layout.

One thing I love about the Waltzingmouse sketch is how it is interpreted by everyone.  I see this sketch and see a clean and simple one.  And others take this layout and use it as a jumping point to create beautiful layered designs with ribbons, and bows, and flowers and whatever else they could possibly think of.  I find it an endless source of inspiration!

 
I started out really liking this card.  But it's definitely missing something.  I'm not sure if it's a bow, or a ribbon, or just another flower.  I actually thought about doing another flower, but I was too lazy!  The watercoloring is nice, but it takes quite a bit of time and I just couldn't bring myself to do another flower!  So I decided to go with what I had.

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

Happy Together

I just got the Happy Together stamp set the other day.  It's not normally the kind of stamp set I would pick, but I'm trying to broaden my stamping horizons and I've got to admit that it's awfully cute.  It certainly came in handy with the latest Paper Players challenge.

I of course, checked out the Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge and found it too adorable to pass up.  I don't know what it is about these sketch challenges, but they always seem to inspire me to make something fun!

I didn't buy any new Valentine's dp this year and I'm generally ok with that (although I've seen some adorable projects with the Love Impressions dp that's in the mini).  So I have to resort to using last year's Sending Love paper.

These little birdies are so cute!  And look how the first one is looking back so adoringly at the other one!  I'm a bit of a bird-watcher so it's a little surprising that I don't use more birds on my cards.  I'll have to think about rectifying that! 

Yesterday I put on my snow shoes and had a little mini-trek out to my bird feeders to fill them up.  As we get closer to spring I'm really looking forward to seeing the birds change at the feeders as the spring migration gets underway.  Maybe I'll get a little inspiration from that!

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

FTL126 Thank You

I had a hankering today to use some of my precious Kiwi Kiss cardstock.  I'm not sure what brought that on, but once I had it in my mind I couldn't get it out.  My stash is down to one full sheet of cardstock, an almost full sheet, and some scraps.  Despite this, I pressed onward.  I also had a hankering to make a card using the latest FTL sketch.

Since I had already decided on using Kiwi Kiss, I went into the vault and dug out my Urban Oasis dp which uses Kiwi Kiss and Basic Gray in a fabulous way.  Since it has been a while since I've used Basic Gray, I went with that for my card.

After I had stamped most of this card I realized that once again, I completely messed up where the sentiment was supposed to go.  So once again I used the dotted image from the Punched Posies stamp set to compensate.  I really need to pay better attention to the sketch while I'm busy putting it all together!

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