Paper Players 93 and Retro Sketches 9

I wanted to get in my stamp room this afternoon after a little mishap today involving a hammer and my finger!  I needed to make sure that I wasn't suffering from any extended damage that might prevent me from stamping!  Luckily, everything seems to be in working order.

This morning I checked out Lesley's Tic Tac Toe/Bingo challenge at The Paper Players and after much deliberation I decided on a diagonal challenge involving Flowers, Designer Paper and something of my own choosing which ended up being stitching.  The very-cool sketch at Retro Sketches provided my layout.

As you can see, I pretty much followed the sketch literally because as soon as I saw it I got one of the flowers from Growing Green in my head and it wouldn't go away.  The DSP is a little bit of Pear Pizzazz from Twitterpated which I zig-zag stitched onto a piece of Pear Pizzazz cardstock.  Then I wrapped a bit of baker's twine around it and added a little button.  I accented the center of the flowers with some black stickles and then used the same stickles for the little dots.

Well, my vacation is over and I'm back to work tomorrow. {Insert big sigh here}.  It was fun while it lasted but reality calls!  Thanks for stopping by!

Color Throwdown 189 and Just Add Ink 115

I finally managed to put a card together for the super-hard Color Throwdown challenge this week.  I started to make a card for the challenge on Wednesday and scrapped it because I didn't like where it was going.  Then I found the Just Add Ink sketch challenge and thought I'd try something with that sketch on Friday but eventually I had to step away from my desk because something still wasn't quite right.  I sat back down tonight and FINALLY put something together.  I don't love it but I put so much time into it I figured I better post it just so I can at least say I didn't back down from what I think just may be the most challenging colors I've ever attempted to put together!

I DO like my little flower though.  I'm not sure it shows up in the photo, but I did the flower layers with cardstock that had been "sueded."  I'm pretty sure that's not a word, but I don't know what else to call this.  I cut the flowers from the Sizzix Tattered Floral die then ran it a bunch of times through my crimper to break down the fibers.  After I smoothed it out a bit, I separated the cardstock and on the inside you get this magical suede effect.  I stuck the layers together with a Calypso Coral brad.

I also used the Stripes embossing folder on the So Saffron layer, but I don't think that shows up all that well either.  I guess this card was meant to be trouble from the very beginning!

I think I'm going to hang up my card-making supplies for the night and hope that a good night's sleep will rejuvenate my mojo!  Thanks for stopping by!

Butterflies, Sketches and Colors, Oh My!

I don't do this all that often, but I managed to make a card using three different challenges.  Usually I go for two, like a color and a sketch.  Today I did that with the FTL sketch and the colors at Simply Stampin'.  But then I added the butterfly challenge at Our Creative Corner!

This is the first time that I used the Flower Garden embossing folder.  I've seen some cards where people have lightly sponged the embossed image to give it some depth, but I was pretty sure that I would wreck it if I tried that so I left that layer alone in all its CAS glory.  I stamped the Marina Mist circle from the Simple Shapes stamp set and the Pink Pirouette circle from Frames With a Flourish.  Each is layered on a cardstock circle of the same color.  I added a couple of buttons - and yes, the pink one is Pretty in Pink (not Pink Pirouette) and a couple of layered butterflies cut from the Beautiful Wings Embosslit.  

Even though my circles are out of whack with the sketch and I totally forgot to add a sentiment I'm pretty pleased with how this turned out.  I hope the FTL ladies will excuse my lapse!

Thanks for stopping by!

Freshly Made Sketches 32

This week at Freshly Made Sketches, Linda  has got a sketch that I think you all are going to love.  

I never know quite what colors I'm going to use when I sit down to make my FMS card, so for this one I checked out some past colourQ challenges and found that the colors for cQc98 were pretty awesome:  Soft Suede, Island Indigo, Bermuda Bay, Lucky Limeade and Whisper White.  (Although in the interest of full disclosure, I used Very Vanilla instead of Whisper White)!    

Every time I use Island Indigo I fall in love with the color all over again.  I don't know why I don't use it more often.  I guess there's so many other colors to use that it gets lost in the shuffle!  But I managed to use it here for my circular/scallopy border as well as the scallop circle.  I inked up the tree from Forest Friends in Lucky Limeade and Soft Suede by coloring directly onto the stamp with my markers.  And the sentiment is from the soon-to-be-retired For All You Do.  I surprised myself by using the Island Indigo baker's twine which I not-so-neatly "tied" together with an Island Indigo Brad.  I have had that twine forever, but this is the first time I've used it.  Shame on me!

Now, head on over to Freshly Made Sketches and check out the wonderful inspiration from the design team.  This is our last week with our guest designers Kathy and Lisa so be sure to stop on by and show them some stamping love!  It's been a real treat having them along for our wonderful journey this month!

Lesley Croghan

Linda Callahan

Cindy Hall

Tui Nathan

Jennifer Timko

Rita Wright

Kathy Tanner

Lisa Johansen 

colourQ 134

I've got to admit the colors that Arielle has cooked up for us this weeks colourQ challenge were a bit of a stumper for me.  I made a couple of cards before I decided that this one was the one I would show everyone.

I went with the pretty CAS design for this weeks CAS-ual Fridays challenge.  I drew the squares with a ruler in Bravo Burgundy and Calypso Coral, then stamped the stars from Seeing Stars in Pumpkin Pie and Pool Party.  For some reason I always associate stars with wishes, dreams, or even achievement so I chose the Verve sentiment to go along with that theme.

Day II of my vacation and the rain has stopped so I really must get outside and start raking.  It's a bit chilly and overcast so I hope the sun will come out soon and warm everything up.

I hope you have time this week to head on over to colourQ and join in the challenge.  The Design Team has once again out-done themselves and I know you'll find some inspiration there!  

The Paper Players 92

I'm on vacation this week and I plan on spending some quality time with all the weeds that are presently growing in my garden.  Hopefully, the weather will cooperate with my plans.  If not, there's always stamping that I can do.  Today was rather rainy so I was able to get some stuff done inside the house.  I also whipped up this card for The Paper Players sketch challenge.

I know I just used the phrase "whipped up," but I don't want to lead anyone to believe that I can whip up any card in a matter of minutes.  I usually spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about my card before I actually start cutting, stamping, and assembling and this one was no different.  In fact, this one probably took me longer to put together because I was trying to watch the Red Sox game at the same time and I kept getting distracted!

I used some lovely Old Olive DSP from Cottage Wall and at the last minute decided to accent it with some Basic Black.  This lead to me using a flourish, also cut from Basic Black, behind the Pretty in Pink layered flower.  The flower is from Papertrey Ink and the sentiment is Verve.

Thanks for stopping by!

Unscripted Sketches 155

The mailman brought me a new, very cute stamp set today that I couldn't wait to ink up.  So, once supper was over I went up to my stamp room and searched around blogland for a sketch that seemed like a good fit for what I had in mind.  The latest Unscripted Sketch was just the ticket!

This is not the usual sort of stamp that I go for, but when I stumbled across it a while ago there was something about it that I thought was so much fun that I decided I had to have it!  There's actually a whole bunch of monsters in the stamp set that are just as adorable as this little guy.

Now, on to the cardstock and DSP for this one.  When Stampin' Up! first came out with In Colors so many years ago, I hoarded all of the colors.  {Surprise, Surprise}.  One of my favorites was Vintage Violet.  I still have one un-opened package of cardstock  as well as half of an another one.  I also have some DSP from Halloween Night, which includes this gorgeous Vintage Violet page that I used for the biggest layer on my card.  I covet this so closely that I can barely believe that I cut into it for this card!  But there's no point in keeping this stuff forever, so in an effort to really demonstrate my commitment to using up my stash I cut into another page from this same package:  the old olive paper with the funky circles.

Both papers seemed to fit this funny little fellow so I'm not at all upset about seeing my stash depleted!

Thanks for stopping by!

Color Throwdown 188 and CCMC198

At least once a month I've got a week where I'm too busy to even venture into my stamp room.  Well, this week was that week.  I haven't set foot in there since Monday, so when I got home from work tonight I was determined to get in there and create something.  No matter how long it took.  It ended up taking way longer than I thought because I couldn't decide what challenges I wanted to participate in.  There are too many that I love!!!

I eventually decided on a couple of challenges, so even though I'm holding my eyelids open with toothpicks right now I'm posting this picture of a card I made for the color challenge at Color Throwdown and the sketch challenge at Create With Connie and Mary.

I dug deep into my stash and used some DSP called Wintergreen which was a Christmas paper from a few years ago featuring Always Artichoke.  I layered this on some Certainly Celery cardstock that I embossed with the Stripes embossing folder.  The flower from Array of Sunshine was stamped first in pretty in pink then sponged with Melon Mambo after I fussy cut three layers.  

The label is from the Matchbox die and stamped with the companion stamp and sentiment from Great Friend.

Well, I have officially had it tonight.  It's late, I'm tired and I would like very much to get some sleep.  So I'm signing off.  But thanks for stopping by.  Tomorrow, at a reasonable hour, I hope!

Freshly Made Sketches 31

Hello!  It's Freshly Made Sketches day here and the oh-so talented Rita Wright has got quite a sketch for you this week.  If you like layers, I think you'll really like this beauty.

I've felt recently that I've been neglecting Crumb Cake so I used that as my card base.  I added some layers in Chocolate Chip, Pear Pizzazz and Twitterpated DSP.  The layered flower is stamped in Pretty in Pink and leaf is stamped in Pear Pizzazz.  I added a Pretty in Pink brad to the center of the flower and I have to say that it looks pretty good.  I briefly thought about adding a green or yellow brad to introduce a bit of color, but I think either of those colors would be too much for this sweet flower.

The Freshly Made Sketches design team has created some fantastic samples for your inspiration, so be sure to check them out.

Lesley Croghan

Linda Callahan

Cindy Hall

Tui Nathan

Jennifer Timko

Rita Wright

Kathy Tanner

Lisa Johansen

  

colourQ 133

The colors this week at colourQ put me in mind of my neglected stamp set French Foliage.  Normally I would only use this stamp set to make cards in autumn but the other day I was looking outside my window at my garden and realized that there were an awful lot of leaves in there that were going to need raking.  So despite the fact that it is spring, I decided to break out this stamp set to sort of celebrate autumn all over again.  It certainly seems to be making itself known in my garden anyway.

The colorful rick rack comes from the Tasteful Trim Sizzix die.  The leafy layer begins with some Basic Black and has a Whisper White layer stitched on it with some thread that matches Dusty Durango pretty well.  The leaves are treated to a little rock and roll technique with More Mustard and Dusty Durango.  I finished it all off with a pewter colored Antique Brad and some white crochet thread.

I left off a sentiment on this one because I haven't decided what I will use it for.  I think it may qualify in the man-card category so I just might use it for Father's Day.

I hope you have time to head on over to colourQ and check out Arielle's latest challenge.  The design team has got some creative goodies to get your juices flowing too!

Paper Players 91 and retro sketches 7

Do you know the phenomena where you learn a new word then suddenly you see this word being used all over the place?  Well, something similar happened to me recently.  On Friday I was describing the process of watercoloring to someone at work.  Well, lo and behold, the challenge this week at The Paper Players (which starts on Sunday) is to create a CAS card with watercoloring!  What are the chances of that?

I, of course, took this to be some kind of cosmic sign and got to work on Sunday creating a card.  The latest retro sketch provided my CAS layout.

I used some of the lovely Twitterpated DSP on my card and stamped the image from Simply Soft in Timber Brown Stazon.  I watercolored the image in Pear Pizzazz, Riding Hood Red and Blushing Bride.  The ribbon is a bit that was in my stash and looked very close to Pear Pizzazz and the button is my LAST Riding Hood Red button from back in the days when that color was just a lowly In Color.  

Thanks for stopping by.  Today is going to be a scorcher in my part of the world.  Normally this is good news because I hate cold weather, but today of all days it's not.  Today is the running of the Boston Marathon and hot weather is not good for the runners.  Hopefully everyone participating in the marathon plays it safe!

See you tomorrow with a very cool colourQ challenge!

CCMC197 and Try Stampin' On Tuesday 61

I don't remember how I stumbled on it, but I found a challenge blog called Try Stampin' on Tuesday that I have never participated in before.  They have a sketch this week that is pretty nifty, so I combined it with the color challenge at Create With Connie and Mary.

Connie and Mary have created a color challenge that includes Concord Crush which is one of the colors retiring in just a few short weeks.  Since I've been trying (somewhat sporadically) to use up these retiring colors, I find this very thoughtful of them!

I used this color with a little DSP from Lap of Luxury.  I actually didn't like this paper pack all that much, except for this particular sheet of Concord Crush.  It's got this wonderful leafy design that you can see a hint of in the photo.  The flower from Raining Flowers is stamped in Marina Mist.  I stamped off on the bottom layer to give it a bit more contrast with the top one.

Earlier today I went to a ceremony honoring my father.  He has been involved with his local VFW for about 50 years and today the VFW dedicated and named their meeting room for him.  He didn't know that this was happening - he thought he was going to a fund raiser!  Instead what he got was a dinner and ceremony with about 90 people.  It was quite an emotional day for him.  We're so proud of him and happy that he was acknowledged for his dedication and service.

Thanks for stopping by!

PPA132 and Unscripted Sketches 153

It's been a long time since I've used Chocolate Chip so I suppose that's one of the reasons that I wanted to participate in the color challenge at Pals Paper Arts.  Chocolate Chip used to be my go-to color when I needed brown, so I feel a little sorry that I've been ignoring it.  Thanks to the Pals for helping me realize it's still a great color!

And the sketch this week at Unscripted Sketches provided my layout.  

The Chocolate Chip DSP is from Ski Slope and I did a little stitching on the Certainly Celery offset-layers.  I tied a big double bow with some baker's twine and added a Chocolate Chip button with a "thanks so much" sentiment hanging from the button.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Freshly Made Sketches 30

This week at Freshly Made Sketches, Tui has designed a sketch that is definitely a keeper.  As you'll see when you visit Freshly Made Sketches the design team has got some great ideas for this sketch.

I did a little recycling with this card because a few weeks ago I made a card that used the other half of this scallop circle of Early Espresso and Crushed Curry.  I kept this part of the circle figuring I could use it "some day."  It's been floating around my stamp desk ever since.   Every once and a while I'd spy it and wonder why in the world I was keeping it.  But then I saw this sketch I realized that there is a good reason for keeping scraps after all!

I thought Pear Pizzazz was a good fit with the colors of the scallop circle so I used a bit of DSP from Twitterpated to create the horizontal layer.  Then I added the Rose Red flower which is cut from the Sizzix Flower Daisies #2 die.  I cut four layers and fluffed them all up together and joined them with an Antique Brad.  The leaf behind the flower is the Sizzix Little Leaves Sizzlet.

Don't forget to hop on over to Freshly Made Sketches and check out the fabulous inspiration from the design team.  I know once you do, you won't be able to resist making a card for our challenge this week!

Lesley Croghan

Linda Callahan

Cindy Hall

Tui Nathan

Jennifer Timko

Rita Wright

Kathy Tanner

Lisa Johansen 

colourQ 132

I will confess that I made a couple of cards for this week's color challenge at colourQ.  And I'm still not entirely sure that I like either one all that much.  Don't you hate when that happens?

Anyway, this is the one I decided on.  The layout is courtesy of the latest retro sketch.

I'm not sure why I had trouble with this one.  The colors are gorgeous and I when I see green I usually think of leaves which makes me think of flowers.  I can do flowers.  But I've been trying to use some of my neglected non-floral stamps lately so I was a little flummoxed about this at first.

I ended up using the stamp set Seeing Stars from Verve and for some reason I got it in my head that I needed to fussy cut the star with the swirls.  Not fun, I can assure you.  But after all that effort, it does look pretty cool!

I hope you have a chance to check out the challenge this week at colourQ.  The design team has, once again, cooked up some inspiration for you that you don't want to miss.  So, pop on over and play along with us!