Painted Butterflies Thank You

I'm on vacation this week from work and I've discovered some wonderful things:  time to sleep in and time to craft!  I don't like to sleep too late but I will admit it's nice to not have to be up and ready to leave for work by 8:00 in the morning.  I've been working outside to clean up the patio, spray the weeds (I can't believe they're here already) and get the veggie garden ready for planting.  And guess what?  After all that I STILL have time to get crafty.  If this is what retirement looks like I can't wait!

Yesterday I made a card for a few challenges.  The sketch at Hand Stamped Sentiments was combined with the colors at Color Throwdown and it was easy to add in a "thank you" for the ShowCASE Your Style challenge.

I did cheat a little and put my sentiment in a different place than the sketch but I wanted my butterflies to appear to be flying up and to the left which would have put the sentiment in a weird spot to my eye.  So I put it down and to the left.  I hope that doesn't get me kicked out!

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:
Stamps:  Painted Butterflies (Altenew)
Paper:  White (Spectrum Noir)
Ink:  So Saffron, Crushed Curry (SU); Onyx Black (Versafine)
Accessories:  enamel dots (Studio Calico)

As You See It Guest Designer

I'm so excited to tell you that I'm the guest designer over at the As You See It challenge this week!  I love playing along with their challenges so I was very excited when Amanda asked me to join them.  This week the challenge is shades of purple and it's also a speed stamping challenge!

The idea behind a speed stamping challenge is to try to make your project in 10 minutes or less.  I've done a few of these before so I know that I need to carefully plot out my design and have all the supplies I'll need handy so I don't waste time trying to find things in my stamp room.  So with my stamps and dies at the ready, the sketch from Hand Stamped Sentiments as my layout and a little washi tape inspiration from City Crafter Challenge I set to work.  I thought for sure that I would go over 10 minutes but I'm pleased to say that I had this all put together in 8 minutes, 3 seconds!  Woo hoo!

I want to extend a bit thank you to Amanda and all the ladies at As You See It for liking my work and asking me to join them this week!  I'm grateful beyond words!

Supplies:

Stamps:  Gorgeous Grunge (SU); Celebrate Artsy (Stamplorations); Dandelion Dreams (Clearly Besotted

Paper:  White (Spectrum Noir); Concord Crush, Vellum (SU)

Ink:  Concord Crush, Wisteria Wonder (SU); Dusty Concord (Distress Inks)

Accessories:  Traditional Tags STAX, Pierced Traditional Tags STAX (My Favorite Things); Cheviot Butterfly die, Delaney Butterfly die (Poppystamps); Basic Rhinestone (SU); washi tape, white crochet thread, white seam binding ribbon

Hashtag Happy

I love to play along with the sketch challenges at Cardabilities.  The design team make such beautiful cards full of layers and embellishments enough to make me swoon.  And here I come with my CAS designs, I'm sure they don't know what to make of me!  I love the challenge of taking their sketches and adapting it to my style.

For this card I incorporated the colors from Hand Stamped Sentiments along with the Oh Feathers challenge at City Crafters.  I love a challenge where the colors are black, white and a pop of something bright and cheery.

I made a slightly grungy background then added the feathers.  One embossed in white on vellum and the other stamped in hot pink-ish with a smattering of embossed black dots.  I think there are dies to go along with this stamp set, but honestly sometimes I think it's easier to fussy cut them out than to try and line up the stamp and die perfectly.

Well that's it for me today.  Thanks so much for stopping by!

Supplies:

Stamps:  Feather Finery (Papetrey Ink); Textures 1, Textures 2 (Florileges Design); Hashtag (Tim Holtz)

Paper:  Classic White (Flourishes); Basic Black (SU); Vellum (Papertrey Ink)

Accessories:  Blueprints 13 (My Favorite Things); black embossing powder, white embossing powder

BE Inspired 44

We are now approaching the final stretch to Christmas!  I hope you are ready!  My shopping is done and I plan on spending the weekend wrapping presents, doing some baking and generally getting into the Christmas spirit!  And to help me along, the BE Inspired Challenge at The Alley Way Stamps blog was all about a fun and colorful Christmas.  The colors inspired me to make one last Christmas card using images from Jolly Holiday!

The layout of my card comes from the latest sketch challenge at Hand Stamped Sentiments.  I really liked the simplicity of the layout and thought the layers would be a great way to show off some of the colors of the inspiration photo.

One extra fun thing about the BE Inspired Challenge is that if you play along you have a chance to win a free stamp set!  All you have to do is play along with the challenge using an image from The Alley Way Stamps.  And if you don't have any stamps you can find FREEBIES here!  One lucky person will be hand picked from all the entries and one person will be randomly chosen.  Each will receive a free stamp set!

So come play along with us!  Good luck!

TAWS September Release Blog Hop!

It's Blog Hop time at The Alley Way Stamps and one lucky person (that could be YOU) is going to win all three brand new stamp sets that will be released on September 1st!  You should have landed here from Christine's blog, and if you did you're on the right track!

Over the last several days our amazing design team having been giving you sneak peeks of the new stamp sets.  My card features the quirky turkey from Give Thanks as well as a sentiment I put together from Alphabet Soup.  Now, I didn't invent this Thanksgiving sentiment, but it is one of my faves!

And if you'd like to be the lucky winner of the new stamp sets here's what you should do to win.  There are multiple things you can do and the more you do the better your chance of winning!

1. Comment on The Alley Way Stamps blog
2. Comment on the DT blogs (handy links are below)
3. Post about the new release on Facebook or your blog
4. Like us on Facebook

Be sure to leave a separate comment on the The Alley Way Stamps blog for each that you do.  You have until 9:00PM TAWS time.

And that's not all.  During the month of September, if you spend $40 or more in the TAWS store, you'll get this fun stamp set, Pointers, for FREE!

Next up on the hop is Kasia.  But if you get lost on the way here are the links to the DT!

And before I go I'll mention that the fab layout on my card is from this great sketch over at Hand Stamped Sentiments.  Love me some half circles!  

Thanks for stopping by and good luck!

BE Inspired 31

I'm a little sad that Friday means my vacation is just about over :(  But, today is also the new BE Inspired challenge at The Alley Way Stamps blog, so that's a good thing!  The colors of the inspiration photo put me in mind of July 4th and from there it was a short leap to Ka-Pow which has some images that make great fireworks!

Coincidentally, the challenge at Color Throwdown was what tipped the scales for me in making a 4th of July card and the sketch from Hand Stamped Sentiments provided the perfect layout!

So if you would like a chance to win a free stamp set from The Alley Way Stamps all you have to do is participate in the BE Inspired challenge.  You have to use an image from The Alley Way Stamps, but don't worry if you don't have any because you can find freebies HERE!  One lucky participant will be chosen to win a free stamp set and another lucky participant will be randomly picked and will also win a free stamp set.  So get inky and link up!  You can find all the details HERE as well as some fantastic inspiration from the always amazing design team!

Thanks for stopping by!

Hand Stamped Sentiments 138 and Unscripted Sketches 179

Since it's World Card Making Day I figured I better dust off my somewhat rusty card making skills and get busy in the craft cave.  It's a long weekend here so I'm hoping that I can get a lot accomplished stamping-wise over the next three days.  I have a hankering to get a head start on some Christmas projects as well as a few Halloween ones.

Today I combined the color challenge at Hand Stamped Sentiments with the sketch at Unscripted Sketches. The colors made me think of a snowman for some reason so I broke out a new-to-me snowman stamp.

I paper pieced the scarf with some Early Espresso DSP from Berry Blossom.  I really wanted an Tangerine Tango scarf, but I don't have any DSP in that color.  Must remedy that...  Once I had the card all assembled it was seriously screaming out for something so I stamped the fun sentiment in Island Indigo, layered it on some cardstock and squished it onto the card where it would fit.  Now that I've had a good look at this there's quite a few things I would change, so I might have to head back to the drawing board!

I hope you have time to celebrate World Card Making Day!  And thanks for stopping by!

MOJO253 and Hand Stamped Sentiments 130

I've been trying to use some of the new In Colors recently and then I stumbled on the mother of all In Color challenges this week at Hand Stamped Sentiments.  At first I was a little intimidated by trying to use all five colors at once, but I took a few days to think about it before I came up with this using the latest MOJO sketch.   

I started with some Very Vanilla which I layered with some Midnight Muse and another layer of Very Vanilla which is embossed with PTI's Guide Lines impression plate.  I layered some stitched Midnight Muse DSP and some Summer Starfruit DSP from Comfort Cafe.  The layered flower is Verve and although it's hard to tell in the picture, the big layer is stamped in Raspberry Ripple and the smaller one in Primrose Petals.  A little Primrose Petals Dahlia finishes off the center of the flower.  The leaves are stamped in Gumball Green using a Verve leaf.  The sentiment is from Much Appreciated.

Once again we've got another hot day on tap.  Although the sun is not out the humidity is pretty high and everything and everyone is hot and sticky!  Later on I'm off to Plymouth for lunch with my mother and sisters.  Hopefully, it will be a little cooler at the coast!

Thanks for stopping by!

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!

Hand Stamp Sentiments 116 & Cards & Things 118

The very cool color challenge at Hand Stamped Sentiments got my creative juices going so I hunted around a bit and settled on using the Cards & Things sketch challenge to make a card.

For the focal point, one of the flowers from the lovely Raining Flowers was stamped once in Pink Pirouette, then another smaller flower was stamped with Regal Rose and the two layered together.  In between those two layers I put a pretty flourish that I cut from a bit of Pool Party.  As a final touch I added a horizontal layer of Pool Party that  I accented with some curly ribbon. 

Thanks for stopping by!