colourQ 328!

Well, we've swung all the way around to Tuesday again.  The weeks go by so fast don't they?  Except when I'm at work, it seems!  Tuesday, of course, means there is a new color palette up at colourQ and this week it made me think of spring and flowers.

I arranged the floral images, stamped in the colors of the challenge, then added some leaves that I die cut out of gold foil.  It's hard to tell they are gold in the picture but they look really pretty in real life!  I also used a stencil with some matte embossing paste to create a design on the pink background but it's impossible to see in the photo.  It's nearly impossible to see in real life! I don't know what possessed me to buy that stuff but the effect is so subtle that I'm not sure I'll be using it all that much in the future.

I have not played along in the Pals Paper Arts challenge in a dog's age, but my friend Linda is the sketch hostess this week and I really liked her sketch and wanted to play along.

Thanks for stopping by!  I hope you have some time to check out our latest colourQ challenge and play along with us.  We love to see you in the gallery!

Supplies
Stamps:  Modern Blooms (My Favorite Things)
Paper:  Sweet Tooth (My Favorite Things); Pink Pirouette, Melon Mambo, Basic Black, Whisper White, Gold Foil (SU)
Ink:  Pink Pirouette, Melon Mambo, Calypso Coral (SU); Black Licorice (My Favorite Things)
Accessories:  Circle Tile stencil (Stencil Girl); Horizontal Stitched Strips die (My Favorite Things); Foliage 3 die (Paper Smooches); Matte Texture Paste (Ranger)

Orange You an Inspiration

I've been trying to dip my toes more often in some of the inspiration challenges out there and this week the one at Stampin' Royalty caught my eye.  I find that I tend to lean towards inspiration challenges that have a clearly defined color or certain shapes and I think that's ok for me.  For this challenge the orange jumped out at me and I like how it was offset with the pale gray.

I decided to forgo the obvious floral theme of the photo in favor of using a new butterfly die that I recently got.  Plus I can hardly ever give up the chance to stick a butterfly somewhere on my cards!  My friend Linda inspired me to play along with the Pals Paper Arts sketch and to do some inlaid circles like she did on her card!  I was going to do one of them orange than thought better of it because I think it would have competed with my orange butterfly.  So I inked up some splatters in both gray and orange instead to give some definition between the two.

The sun is shining, the snow is slowly melting but there's some rain on the way so what's a girl to do other than to hang out in her craft room?  So that's just where I'm headed.  Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:

Stamps:  Gorgeous Grunge (SU); Grunge Me (Papertrey Ink); Thanks (Simon Says Stamp)

Paper:  Smoky Slate, Tangerine Tango (SU); Neenah Solar White

Ink:  Smoky Slate, Tangerine Tango (SU)

Accessories:  Vertical Stitched Strips, Stitched Circle STAX (My Favorite Things); Vivienne Butterfly die (Simon Says Stamp); Midnight Blend sequins (Avery Elle)

Butterfly Thanks

I managed to pop into my stamp room Saturday night to make a card for a few challenges.  I combined the sketch from CAS(E) This Sketch with the colors at Pals Paper Arts and the embossing challenge at Happy Little Stampers.

I had a little CATrastophy with the lights I use when I'm photographing my cards.  One of my kitties (the one I usually say is a little angel) knocked over one of my lamps and the bulb smashed to smithereens.  So I've had to improvise with lighting my cards until my new bulb arrives.  The darkness you see on the left side of this pic is the lack of light from my unlit lamp.  I've tried to compensate with my camera settings and my photo editing software but those can't correct everything!

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:

Stamps:  Papillon Potpourri (SU); Ink Splats (Indigo Blu); Thanks (Simon Says Stamp)

Paper:  Pixie (Avery Elle); Rose Red, Whisper White (SU)

Ink:  Basic Gray, Rose Red (SU)

Accessories:  Diagonal Stripes stencil (Simon Says Stamp); translucent embossing paste (Dreamweaver); Basic Rhinestones (SU)

colourQ 276

Happy Tuesday!  It's time for a new palette from your friends at colourQ!  The colors are bold and for my card I decided to combine them with the sketch from Pals Paper Arts.

There are some tiny vellum flags that hang from under the thanks sentiment but they are barely visible.  Heck, they are barely visible in real life!  I thought they would be a nice touch for the sketch but after I had them stuck down I realized they didn't look so good.  But I took the picture, uploaded it and proceeded to have second thoughts.  So I grabbed a tiny little chevron stamp and made three flags stamped in dark brown, carefully cut the vellum flags off and stuck the chevron flags down.  And how do you suppose it looked?  Horrible!  The card is now relegated to the recycle bin!  I should have known better than to mess with the original!

The colourQ design team have some beautiful cards to show you so I hope you check them out and then join us in the gallery!

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:

Paper:  Kraft (Papertrey Ink); Chocolate Chip, Coastal Cabana, Strawberry Slush, Coastal Cabana DSP (SU)

Accessories:  Thanks on a Line die (Simon Says Stamp); Banner Trio die (WPlus9); Small Stitched Rectangle die (Lawn Fawn)

Hashtag THX

This weekend I discovered that it really hard to try and be crafty while also watching football.  Mostly this is because I need my glasses to see the TV but not to see anything on my desk.  So I'm constantly tilting my head up so that I can see through my glasses and what's happening on the TV and then down and under the frames to see my desk!  And no way am I breaking down to get bi-focals!

But anyway on to my card.  This one uses the monochromatic color palette at Pals Paper Arts and the sketch from CAS(E) This Sketch.  It's not very artsy but it's today's Mona Lisa* so I'm going with it!

The hashtag is a very cool die and on my card it takes the place of the little floral image on the sketch.  I was having some trouble deciding what image to use when I remembered that I recently got that die.  It was like a light bulb moment for me.  It's modern, fresh and a little bit fun!

*The whole Mona Lisa thing is advice I got from my friend Linda who got it from her friend Mary Fish.  I'm paraphrasing but the advice is basically no matter whether you like what you've created or not post it anyway as if it was the Mona Lisa and move on to the next card.  That's good advice, don't you think?

Thanks so much for stopping by!  And for all you football fans out there GO PATS!

Supplies:

Stamps:  Bokeh Dots (Essentials by Ellen); Big Words (Mama Elephant)

Paper:  Soft  Sky, Island Indigo, Whisper White (SU)

Ink:  Soft Sky, Pool Party, Island Indigo (SU)

Accessories:  Social Media die (My Creative Time); Pierced Rectangle STAX (My Favorite Things)

Butterfly Thank You

Before I get to my card, I just wanted to mention something about the CAPTCHA code that is now showing up on blogs all over the place.  Even those blogs that have word verification turned off now have the "prove your not a robot" thing showing up when trying to leave a comment.  Blogger help forums are indicating that it is a bug (and hopefully will be fixed soon), but in the meantime the good news is that you can ignore the CAPTCHA code entirely and your comment will still post.  So if you see the box asking you to type in those slightly blurry numbers just pretend it's not there and leave your comment.  It will post as it normally did.  Weird, but true. 

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

I feel like I've making nothing but Christmas cards in my mad dash to make sure that I've got enough to mail out so I needed to take a little break and make something completely different.  I recently got a new stamp set and I've been waiting for the perfect opportunity to ink it up.  The colors from Pals Paper Arts and the layout from CAS(E) This Sketch gave me that opportunity.

I adore this butterfly stamp set.  It's got these wonderful layers that make the butterflies have such depth.  The stamp set itself is laid out a little weird on the acetate sheet it comes with.  Sometimes the images that are supposed to go together are not next to each other on the acetate so there's a bit of hunting and pecking to find the correct layers.  But the effort is worth the end result because these butterflies are gorgeous!

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Supplies:

Stamps:  Painted Butterflies (Altenew)

Paper:  White (Spectrum Noir); Bermuda Bay (SU)

Ink:  Soft Sky, Pool Party (SU); True Black (Papertrey Ink)

Accessories:  Enamel dots (My Mind's Eye)

colourQ 265

Halloween is fast approaching and I figured I had one last Halloween card in me.  Lucky for me the new palette up at colourQ fit right into my plans.  The colors are based on these custom made designs.  How cute are they!  As I thought about a design for my card I decided that I wanted to use my favorite Halloween set and that the design of the Pals Paper Arts sketch would allow me to show off the focal image of my idea perfectly.

I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out the best way to cut those angled layers without wasting a lot of cardstock.  What I ended up wasting was a whole lot of time.  I should have just cut some rectangles, layered them on the card base and trimmed the excess off the edges.

This card features a Herman Munster like dude (or Frankenstein, if you're picky) and he's from my beloved Best Fiends stamp set.  I love his runway pose as he shows off his trick-or-treat bag.

So will you create a crafty Halloween card with these pretty colourQ colors or something else entirely?  I'd love to see you in the gallery!  In order to spark your creativity, our design team has got some beauties to share with you so be sure to check them out!

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:

Stamps:  Best Fiends (SU)

Paper:  Basic Black, Tangerine Tango, Concord Crush, Howlstooth and Scaring Bone (SU); X-Press It Blending Card

Ink:  Black Licorice (My Favorite Things); Copics

Accessories:  Frightful Enamel Dots (My Mind's Eye); Enamel Dots (Studio Calico)

World Card Making Day!

It's been a long day but I couldn't allow it to end without posting something that I made for World Card Making Day.  I got a late start but managed to put this together for the color challenge at Pals Paper Arts and the sketch from Cardabilities.

I'm not entirely sure it shows up on the photo but I started with some embossing paste and a stencil.  Then I layered some branches, a few punched flowers and a sentiment.  Easy peasy!

As I was contemplating World Card Making Day I was reminded that I had just started posting on Splitcoast Stampers around WCMD in 2008.  Curious, I went back to my gallery and found that the third card I posted there was for a WCMD SCS hosted challenge.  This was the beginning of my card-making adventure and as you can imagine the card is pretty awful but I will say that I still have the stamp set I used!  Sometimes it's fun to go back and take a look at your earlier creations and see how you've changed as a crafter.

Well I'm tired and going to call it a night.  WMCD will officially be over in my neck of the woods in less than an hour so I'm getting this in just under the wire!  Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:

Stamps:  Label Love (Altenew)

Paper:  Classic Ivory (Flourishes); Early Espresso, So Saffron, Calypso Coral

Ink:  Early Espresso (SU)

Accessories:  Grove Branch die (Memory Box); Button Stacks II die (Papertrey Ink); Textures Shine stencil (Memory Box); white embossing paste (Dreaweaver)

A Note of Thanks for PPA215, Fusion

The beautiful colors this week at Pals Paper Arts were calling me as was the sketch at Fusion.  I was pretty sure that I had some Pear Pizzazz DSP hiding in my stash and after searching for about 15 minutes I finally found it.  I wish someone could tell me why my stash of patterned paper never seems to get any smaller!

I gave the white layer a spritz of color then inked up the floral stamp in black.  I love how the color is soft and imperfect.  The button was an afterthought because I forgot the little star element on the sketch.  I tried not to make it look too out of place and added some scrunched up thread behind it so that it was a little more interesting.  I think it may be a little hard to see in the photo but the vertical layer on the left of the sketch is actually a long line of black embossing paste on my card.  Boy, I love that stuff!

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:

Stamps:  Thank You Kindly (SU); Going to Seed (Woodware)

Paper:  Basic Black, Pear Pizzazz, Strawberry Slush, Whisper White, Pear Pizzazz DSP)

Ink:  Pretty Pink (Mister Huey's Color Mists); Onyx Black (Versafine), Versamark

Accessories:  Diagonal Stripe stencil (Simon Says Stamp); black embossing paste (Wendy Vecchi); Make it Merry button (October Afternoon); white embossing powder

Ink Splatters and a Hello

I haven't been in a very crafty mood lately.  I think its party the fault of my day job and partly the fault of the gorgeous weather we've been having.  I just can't seem to rustle up the energy to get crafty.  Case in point, it took me two days to make a card for the bold color challenge at Pals Paper Arts and the card I ended up with isn't even the card I started out with!  I wanted to combine the colors with the latest CAS(E) This Sketch but I've got such a liberal interpretation of the sketch I just might get kicked out of the gallery.

I got some new stamps in the mail on Friday which probably explains why I ditched the card I started with on Thursday.  I really wanted to use the grid design that I used as the horizontal layer on the sketch.  Then I added some ink splatters to break up all that yellow and since I already had the flowers fussy cut and colored from the Thursday reject I added those with dimensionals. I cut three of the 'hello' die and glued them together so there's a bit more dimension on the card too.

This beautiful weather we've been having has been great for my vegetable garden, especially compared to last year when some heavy spring rain water-logged a lot of my plants.  I've a zucchini  ready to be picked and in another day or so a summer squash.  Yum!  Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:

Stamps:  Gorgeous Grunge, Everything Eleanor (SU); Textures (Dina Wakely Media)

Paper:  Ultra Smooth Pure White (Avery Elle); Night of Navy (SU)

Ink:  Daffodil Delight, Night of Navy (SU)

Accessories:  Hand Lettered Hello die (WPlus9)

Sweet Baby

A while back a co-worker asked me to make some baby themed cards for her.  She wanted about six of them to send to a friend who was expecting a baby.  I told her that I'd be happy to make some for her but I was secretly scared.  If you've been here before then you know that baby cards are not really my thing and I was a little afraid that anything I made would be kinda lousy.  But I'm nothing if not adventurous in my craft cave so for the last few weeks I've been busy doing baby card searches and pinning a few that caught my eye.

We don't know whether the baby is a boy or a girl so I've been trying to stick to neutral colors.  The card I've got here was inspired by THIS adorable card and features the colors from Colour Me (kind of unconventional for a baby card), the sketch from Pals Paper Arts, and conveniently, the baby theme at The Card Concept.  And I got to use a brand new stamp set so I'm linking up to Darnelle's NBUS challenge too (just under the wire)!

I'm not sure mine looks as quite like a bib as my inspiration card (I think it might those in-your-face colors), but it does look better in real life.  It's a cute concept and I'm pretty sure the recipient will like it!

My vacation is winding down (insert heavy sigh here) and it's back to work on Monday for me.  I've had some fantastic weather this week and got a lot accomplished outside in the garden digging up weeds and flowers that had gone rogue.  I love that feeling of a job well done!

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:

Stamps:  Onesie Two-sie (WPlus9)

Paper:  Classic Ivory (Flourishes); Natural White (Neenah); Early Espresso, Daffodil Delight, Tempting Turquoise, Old Olive (SU)

Ink:  Early Espresso (SU)

Accessories:  Houndstooth embossing folder, Daffodil Delight seam binding ribbon (SU) 

Thanks a Million

May the 4th be with you.  * Sorry, couldn't resist *

On to the card.  I was working on this card for a long time in my head yesterday afternoon as I ran errands and did some housework, so you'd think that it would have come together in a snap when I finally got in my stamp room.  Not so...

I've got a rare three-fer here since I made this for the sketch at CAS(E) This Sketch, the colors at Pals Paper Arts and the grunge challenge at Addicted to CAS.  I didn't like how I had the grungy images arranged on the first card I made.  So I grabbed another piece of card stock, but this time around the background images were too dark and the sentiment got lost.  Finally I remembered to stamp off, arranged the images "just so" and sure enough the third time was a charm and I got a card I liked!  By the time I had put it together it was late, my eyes were droopy and I put it aside to photograph and post today.

The sun is shining and I've opened all the windows (finally) to let some beautiful fresh air inside!  My kitties are going nuts running from window to window since they pretty much haven't smelled fresh air since I took them to the vet last November!  Poor things!  My new rolling garden seat arrived and I think I'll put it together so that I can work outside without  killing my back.  I peeked inside the box and there's about a million pieces in there so I hope I can put it together before winter sets in.  :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:

Stamps:  Sketchy (KaiserCraft); Textures 2 (Florileges Design); Funky Florals (Papertrey Ink); The Big, the Bold and You (Winnie & Walter)

Paper:  Classic White (Flourishes); Solar White (Neenah); Kraft (Avery Elle); Whisper White (SU)

Ink:  Crumb Cake, Bermuda Bay (SU); Pure Poppy (Papertrey Ink); Pitch Black (Adirondack)

Accessories:  Notable Cute enamel dots (My Mind's Eye); washi tape

Hello for PPA199 & SS305

I have really been on a roll the last few days in my craft room churning out cards left and right.  I must be neglecting my house work because I've had all kinds of extra time to get down and dirty with my stamping stash.  Today I've got a card using the colors from Pals Paper Arts and the layout from Sketch Saturday.

I went with a little abstract interpretation of the sketch.  I briefly thought about dragging out my old scallop circle nesties and doing a layered circle-thing but I thought it would be more fun if I created that circle with a stamp instead.  So I grabbed a big ol' grungy stamp and that became my "circle".  For some reason, I stamped one of the dotted images from PTI's Feather Finery over the grungy image in Versamark and heat embossed it with white and I really don't know why I bothered since you can't see it.  It would have looked better if I had done it in a color that actually showed up!  And for a little added oomph I went over the little flower with my brand new Wink of Stella pen and although you can't see it in the photo, the glimmer it adds is absolutely fabulous!  Hands down, this is the best new thing I've purchased in ages!

Mother Nature must have got the memo that we're all pretty much fed up with winter around here because she's been delivering us some wonderful spring-like weather lately.  It's so nice to open the windows in the house and let in some fresh air!

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:

Stamps:  Extreme Elements, Summer Silhouettes (SU); Sunny Days (Verve); Feather Finery (Papertrey Ink), The Big, the Bold and the Happy (Winnie &Walter)

Ink:  So Saffron, Pear Pizzazz, Calypso Coral (SU); Onyx  Black, (Versafine); Versamark

Accessories:  Leafy Sprigs die (Verve); white embossing powder; Wink of Stella pen