Create With Connie and Mary 219

Is it Thursday already?  Well of course it is, which means it's also time for another great challenge from Create With Connie and Mary!  This week is a sketch (a square one, my fave) and you are going to love it!  I don't know how Connie and Mary do it, but week after week, they create these awesome challenges!  Take a look at what's on tap for this week:

I felt like it had been ages since I used some Soft Suede so I started with that as my card base then picked a color that I thought went well with it.  I used some Baja Breeze card stock cut with the Labels Framelit then layered it with some DSP from Twitterpated.  Then I went to check out my stamps to figure out which ones had been neglected lately!

After much contemplation, I used the flowers from Stippled Blossoms which were perfect for two-step stamping  using Baja Breeze and Soft Suede.  I added some leaves stamped in Wild Wasabi which seemed to be the same tone as the other colors.  

The horizontal layer is a strip of Baja Breeze layered with some Baja Breeze Seam Binding Ribbon, a little Linen Thread and an Antique Brad.  I added the sentiment from Just Believe at the last minute because I thought the card was missing something.  I'm glad I did because I think it makes that big label a little more interesting!

Thanks for stopping by and be sure to pop on over to Create With Connie and Mary to check out the inspiration from the design team!

It's A Freshly Made Sketches Anniversary!

I can hardly believe that we're at Sketch #52 at Freshly Made Sketches.  It seems like yesterday that Lesley was putting together her ideas for the challenge and assembling a top-notch design team.  Some days I still can't quite believe that she asked me to be a part of this challenge.  Every week I have the pleasure and the honor of working with such a talented bunch of ladies who, week after week, give me so much inspiration.  And I hope that when we all get together to stamp in this virtual world we live in, that we inspire you, our faithful challenge companions, just a wee bit too!

Now on to our fabulous sketch this week.  Except there is no sketch this week.  At least not in the traditional sense.  For our anniversary we are challenging you to choose any one of our past sketches (which you will find here) and make a card to help us celebrate this milestone.  I chose Sketch #32, which was designed by Linda Callahan.

Now, if you are a new visitor (a hearty welcome if you are) and you poke around a bit, you will find that I am a bit of a fan of using non-traditional colors for otherwise traditional holiday cards.  For this Halloween card I used the colors at The Paper Players.  I knew right away when I saw that color challenge that I wanted to participate, but it wasn't until I started to make my card for this challenge that I realized these colors would be perfect for a Halloween card using my favorite skull.  And I think I out-did myself in the non-traditional sense because my Baja Breeze DSP is from Urban Oasis and is actually printed with one of the big roses from Fifth Avenue Floral.  If you don't look too closely, I think they sort of resemble squiggly lines.  Scary squiggly lines, that is.

I sure hope you can join us this week to celebrate our anniversary.  Our design team has knocked it out of the park this week, so be sure to stop on by Freshly Made Sketches and check out their cards!  We've even got Linda Callahan and Rita Wright back this week!  Woo hoo!

  

Three Challenges in One

I had a busy weekend and I wasn't sure how much time I would be able to spend in my stamp room, so I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to make a card for the polka dot challenge at Just Add Ink, the color challenge at Stampin' Royalty and the sketch challenge at retro sketches.

There's nothing quite like trying to combine three challenges into one card that gets my creative juices flowing!  I tried to channel my inner LeAnne who makes the best crinkly bows I've seen.  Mine is definitely crinkly, but I think it needs some work!

Well, I'm off to get ready for work.  Thanks for stopping by!

Create With Connie and Mary 217

Hello everyone!  I'm so excited to share with you that Holly Endress will be joining us at Create With Connie and Mary for the month of September as a guest designer!  I sure hope you'll pop on over to her blog to show her some love!  

Today Connie and Mary have cooked up quite a great sketch for you.  I think it's perfect for showing off gorgeous DSP and some fantastic stamps.  Take a look:

I couldn't resist using my Wonderfall stamp for this sketch. I love layering the leaves and they are perfect for a little rock-and-roll coloring.  I added some pretty baker's twine and button for a finishing touch!  I actually waffled a bit about whether or not I should add a sentiment to this card but decided against it.  I often like to leave cards blank so that I can add an appropriate sentiment at a later date.  One thing for sure is that fall is definitely in the air because the challenge this week at The Paper Players is to use leaves or trees on a project.

There's still time to sign up for the Create With Connie and Mary 2012 Holiday Edition.  Don't forget to head on over to Create With Connie and Mary to find out all about it and to check out the latest inspiration from the design team for this latest sketch challenge. You won't be sorry! 

Freshly Made Sketches 45

Happy Wednesday everyone!  Today over at Freshly Made Sketches the wonderfully talented Cindy has got a fantastic sketch for you that is a perfect way to show off all that patterned paper that I know you've been hoarding!  I went into my personal DSP vault and selected some retired paper called Cottage Wall for my card.

It seems like ages since I've used Old Olive, a color that I used a lot in days gone by, so that was a big motivator for me choosing this DSP.  I layered the pretty paper on cardstock then decided it needed a bit of jazzing up so I stitched it with a zig-zag.  I tried to channel my inner Jennifer who has an amazing knack for mixing up patterned DSP for maximum impact, but I'm not sure that I succeeded with my striped layer.  I like the added ribbon and baker's twine, but now that I'm studying it I wish I added a button.  Drat!

The pretty flower is from an old favorite Raining Flowers.  And in a sudden burst of inspiration I decided to substitute the sentiment for a row of brads.  There's just something about a row of brads that I really love and I thought they added some interesting texture.

I hope you have time to join us this week at Freshly Made Sketches.  Be sure to stop by and check out the amazing samples from the design team!

Cindy Hall

Tui Nathan

Jennifer Timko

Allisa Chilton

Jen Sannes

Ann Schach

Linda Suarez

Jennifer Brum 

colourQ 145

I'm on vacation this week and I think my mojo has gone on vacation as well.  I've spent the last several evenings in my stamp room struggling to put some cards together.  I don't know why I'm having such a hard time but hopefully I'll snap out of it soon.  Today I've got a card to show you for the latest color challenge at colourQ.  The colors are totally awesome and right up my alley, as you will see:

I had visions of a card that was a bit more springy but this is what emerged from my desk instead!  And before you begin wondering, I have no idea what that stemless flower is doing on this card.  There was some white space that needed something and a button wasn't cutting it (I think because of the three smaller buttons at the top) and I couldn't find anything else in my stash that looked ok, so I stuck another flower in the space.  Sometimes improvisation is the key!

Thank goodness for the gals at retro sketches, whose sketch I used for my card.  I would have been completely lost without them!

Now, head on over to colourQ and check out the completely awesome inspiration from the design team.  Then link up your own completely awesome creation for us to check out!

Freshly Made Sketches 40

Today at Freshly Made Sketches the super-talented Lesley has created a great sketch.  I know you're going to love it!

I switched up the oval for this great Gina K stamp.  I stamped the image in Versamark and embossed it in black.  I just couldn't get black ink to be vibrant enough so when that happens I turn to embossing powder to save the day.  I accented the stamp with a couple of flowers punched from the Boho Blossoms punch.  The sentiment is from Itty Bitty Banners.  

For my colors this week I found the challenge at Dynamic Duos was too good to resist.  And I managed to squeeze in the dessert option of ribbon with my scrunchy black seam binding. 

Our fabulous Freshly Made Sketches design team has got some great inspiration for you so hop on over to check them out.  Then do a little creating of your own and link up your card.  We love to pop on by and see what you've done!  Here's a list of the super talented FMS design team.

Lesley Croghan

Linda Callahan

Cindy Hall

Tui Nathan

Jennifer Timko

Rita Wright

Allisa Chilton

Jen Sannes

Ann Schach

Linda Suarez

Jennifer Brum 

colourQ 142

Tuesday means another awesome color challenge by our colourQ fearless leader, Arielle.  Week after week she manages to find the most inspiring photos with interesting color combos that always challenge me to think of colors in a whole new way.  Well, this week the colors made me want to attempt a sketch challenge that was nothing like I'd ever tried before.

Here are the colors:

And here's the sketch from retro sketches:

When I first saw this, I thought "no way."  My brain couldn't comprehend what I was seeing and I wanted to just close my browser window and pretend I never saw it.  But as it turns out I couldn't pretend it didn't exist.  In fact, I studied it very carefully and decided that I would try and make a card using many of the elements of the sketch.  I'm a left-brain kind of person and tend to interpret things quite literally so that's why many of the elements of my card echo the sketch quite a bit.  I did change it up some and in the end I'm quite pleased with it.  (Secretly, I keep staring at it because I can't quite believe that I made this - it's so far outside what I usually do).

So now it's your turn.  Head on over to colourQ and check out what the design team has put together to amaze and delight you.  I hope you can join us this week!

colourQ 141

Tuesday, of course, means a new color challenge from Arielle and colourQ.  And what a challenge this is.  I think you'll find that these colors are perfect for that oh-so difficult man-card.  And what timing - especially since Father's Day is right around the corner!

Despite the tie and the man-card colors, I decided to go in a totally different direction!  The latest Deconstructed Sketch gave me a perfect layout to show off these awesome colors and I went with the fabulous PTI flower that I seem to be obsessed with!

I searched my stash, and I didn't have any more Brocade Blue so I substituted Marina Mist instead.  It's a rather poor substitution, but the best I could come up with.  Despite my liberty with the colors, I've got to say that all these blues look fabulous together.  There's light and dark and a little something in between.  And they are all perfect foil for the Lucky Limeade accents!

Be sure to stop by colourQ and check out this challenge and all the inspiration from the design team.  You won't be disappointed!  And don't forget to link up!

Hand Stamped Sentiments 121 and retro sketches 15

Today, when I should have been mowing the lawn, I went into my stamp room and made a card.  I feel a little guilty, but I got a bunch of new stuff yesterday and I needed to try some of it out!  The lawn will still be there tomorrow, after all.  Not to mention that Hand Stamped Sentiments has a really cool color challenge this week and I didn't want to forget to participate.  Paired with the latest retro sketch I think I made a pretty card.

I used a little old and a little new with this card.  The Daffodil Delight DSP is from Beyond the Garden and that beautiful flower is from the new Stippled Blossoms.  I was pretty sure that flower would look fabulous in yellow and I was right!  I'm a little excited about my bow.  I think it looks nice and I have a new gadget to make them.

I'm a huge fan of ribbon and bows on my cards, I'm just not a huge fan of making bows.  I am able to make a half-way decent one and some of my blogging friends have generously given me tips and tricks to make me better at it.  I've got the Bow Easy, but I don't like using it because I think the "fingers" should be longer so that there's less chance the ribbon slips off it.  I have this huge wooden bow maker that I bought years ago for tying ribbons on my Christmas packages and I realized that what I really wanted was a smaller version of that.  So today, I went down cellar and made this from a scrap of walnut (so fancy!) and dowels.

I've seen other similar bow makers for sale on other's blogs, but I'm cheap and I've got a cellar full of wood and figured it would be pretty easy to put together.  So far I like it.  It's super simple to use and the dowels move around so I can make different sized bows.  Yay me!

Thanks for stopping by!

colourQ 137

When I sat down to make my card this week for the amazing colors that Arielle has mixed up for us this week at colourQ, I had something quite different in mind.  But as these things usually go, I deviated from what I originally planned and wound up with this instead.

I tried a little watercoloring on the wee flowers from Growing Green.  The other day I mentioned to someone at work that I like to watercolor because it's somewhat forgiving.  You can lay down color in a slap-dash manner and it still looks pretty good.  But after seeing this, I think I need revise my opinion or at least practice more.  It looked so much better in my brain when I envisioned what this was going to look like!

The latest sketch at Unscripted Sketches provided my layout.  I liked the idea of the four different blocks and originally planned on using designer paper for them.  But then I got thinking about baker's twine and ended up twining some Lucky Limeade baker's twine around some cardstock to approximate the four blocks.

Now it's your turn.  Click here to check out the inspiration from the amazingly talented colourQ design team.    Then, as the man says, go ahead, grab your stickles and join us!

Freshly Made Sketches 34

I think I mentioned the other day that the impending end of the current Stampin' Up! catalog has apparently got me feeling a little nostalgic about some other retired supplies I have in my stash.  Well, as I contemplated making my card for Freshly Made Sketches this week, I came across some retired designer paper called Berry Bliss.  And this lead me to one of the companion stamps sets for this paper called One of a Kind.  And this in turn lead to my card this week.

The DSP that I used primarily uses Close to Cocoa, but I didn't have any of that cardstock or ink so I used Chocolate Chip instead.  I did have some Purely Pomegranate so I used some cardstock and stamped the image a couple of times with that ink color.  One image was stamped directly onto to DSP and cut out to layer over the same image stamped onto some Whisper White.  The little Chocolate Chip center of the image was inked in Versamark then clear embossed.  And in the center is a Build a Brad. I wish those had never retired because I always thought that it was so cool to make your own brad!  Add a little Pretty in Pink taffeta ribbon and I was done!

Lesley has given us a great sketch this week.  It's got all kinds of shapes that I love to combine.  And the design team has got some FABULOUS cards this week to light your creativity on fire, so run right over to Freshly Made Sketches and check them out.  I hope you can find some time to join us this week!

Lesley Croghan

Linda Callahan

Cindy Hall

Tui Nathan

Jennifer Timko

Rita Wright

Erna Logtenberg

Tara Murphy Bourgoin