Merry

I recently came across another Christmas Card Challenge and since the inspiration was trees it gave me a good excuse to ink up my favorite triangular trees.  And I liked the layout at Wanna Sketch because it gave me an excuse to use three of them!

I added some falling snow behind the trees with embossing paste.  It looks much better in person that it shows in this picture (of course).  I love how this came out.  It's simple but has some nice texture and detail.

Well I'm off to the grocery store.  I'm in charge of the sweet potatoes for Thanksgiving and I want to get all my ingredients early before it gets too crazy at the supermarket!  Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:

Stamp:  Modern Christmas (Clearly Besotted

Paper:   White (Spectrum Noir); Pure Poppy (Papertrey Ink)

Ink:  Pure Poppy, Ripe Avocado (Papertrey Ink)

Accessories:  Modern Christmas die (Clearly Besotted); Hand Lettered Holiday die (WPlus9); Falling Snow stencil (Simon Says Stamp); white embossing paste (Dreamweaver)

colourQ 252

Our last colourQ palette of July features a bit of Christmas inspired by these delightful hand-made ornaments.  It's the perfect opportunity to use the colors to get ahead on some of your Christmas cards, or like some of my teamies have done, use them in a non-holiday way.  These colors are some of my favorites to use on Christmas cards so I jumped in with both feet and added another card to my Christmas card stash!

The latest Wanna Sketch gave me some ideas for my card, but instead of doing three separate banners I created one big one in burlap which I broke up with a red ribbon banner.  I think it's a fun interpretation of the sketch and lets me add some much-loved texture with this gorgeous burlap ribbon.  

And you may notice that the sentiment is slightly askew.  I blame it on the acrylic stamp that slips and slides on an acrylic block when it encounters even the slightest bit of moisture (read humid stamp room with no AC). This KaiserCraft set is one of my favorite Christmas sentiment sets.  I just don't understand why they make them from acrylic instead of photopolymer.  Acrylic doesn't take ink nearly as well as photopolymer and does the whole slip 'n slide thing, which is really annoying.  {Rant over, back to our regularly scheduled programming}.

Ok, so our always amazing colourQ design team have got some beautiful cards to inspire you.  Hop on over there to check them out.  I hope you can join us in the gallery this week!

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:

Stamps:  Modern Christmas (Clearly Besotted); Christmas Quotes (KaiserCraft)

Paper:  Kraft (Avery Elle); Early Espresso, Whisper White (SU)

Ink:  Certainly Celery, Early Espresso, Real Red (SU)

Accessories:  Real Red Stitched Ribbon (SU); Berry Blend sequins (Avery Elle); burlap ribbon

colourQ 242

I am not ashamed to admit that when I first clapped eyes on this week's colourQ palette I wanted to run in the opposite direction as fast as my little feet would take me.  It's not that I didn't like the bold and colorful colors, because I did, I just had no idea how I was going to put them together in one place.  Cool sneakers aside, this was a tough challenge for me.

But they don't call it a challenge for no reason, right?  Usually when I see a bit of green I think I can do something with leaves and perhaps work in a flower and that was the road I went down first with my card.  But as I got working I realized that I had no (good) ideas for flowers so I grabbed a few graphic stamp sets and went about laying down color and images in a somewhat random way.

The newest Wanna Sketch gave me the perfect layout to show off these cool images and I happily stamped away until I got a look that I liked.  The only mistake that I made was that I stamped the sentiment before I put the card together so although it's straight, it's straight with the tilted layer and not the card base.  The difference is subtle but it doesn't look too bad, I say to myself.

So how do you see these bold and bright colors on your project?  Our colourQ design team see them all kinds of ways so do hop on over there to check them out.  I hope to see you in the gallery later!

Supplies:

Stamps:  Extreme Elements (SU); Grunge Me (Papertrey Ink); Grunge Cirque (Tim Holtz)

Paper:  White Linen (Ellen Hutson); Solar White (Neenah); Tempting Turquoise (SU)

Ink:  Daffodil Delight, Tempting Turquoise, Melon Mambo (SU); Lettuce, Pitch Black (Adirondack)  

Oh Yeah Baby!

On my quest to make a bunch of baby cards for a co-worker I decided to try my hand at a shaker card.  Lately I've been seeing them all over the place and although I'd never made one before I thought it would be fun to try.  The layout from Wanna Sketch as well as Kim's adorable card gave me loads of inspiration!

I love those little piggy toes peeking through the sequins!  I think I put too many in.  Sometimes they don't shake because they're stuck!  Even still I think it's pretty cute and I bet the mother-to-be will think so too!

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:

Stamps:  Baby Prints (SU); Say What (Mama Elephant)

Paper:  Smoky Slate, So Saffron, Whisper White, Sweet Pea DSP (SU); acetate

Ink:  So Saffron, Smoky Slate (SU)

Accessories:  Pastel Sequin Mix (Verve); So Saffron button (SU); crochet thread

colourQ 236

Spring is sure taking its sweet time getting here this year.  After the winter that wouldn't go away, we've got the spring that won't arrive.  We're stuck in this weather twilight zone and every day I pray that the warm sun will finally shine on my face.  The weather forecast for this week looks good so hopefully we are turning the corner!

Despite what's going on outside, inside your craft room I can promise you some wonderful spring-y colors courtesy of this week's colourQ palette.  Arielle has found another color combo that is sure to light up the gallery!

I got some new dies last week so I tried them out here (although the butterfly die isn't quite what I thought it was).  I thought it was an ordinary die that cut out a butterfly, but it actually is designed to just cut the wings.  The body of the butterfly doesn't cut clean through the card stock so if you want the whole butterfly you have to carefully cut the body out with scissors.  The die is so pretty though that it's worth the little extra bit of trouble.

I kinda-sorta followed the Wanna Sketch for my layout.  The sketch calls for two layers on top of the card base and I started to do that.  But the second layer interfered with how the leafy die cut looked to my eye, so I decided that the those leaves would be the second "layer."  

We'd love to see you in the gallery this week at colourQ!  And don't forget to check out the beautiful cards made by our amazing design team.  Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:

Stamps:  DIY (Precious Remembrance); Winged Beauties (My Favorite Things)

Paper:  Woodgrain (Simon Says Stamp); Solar White (Neenah); Bermuda Bay, Cool Caribbean, Tangerine Tango, Peach Parfait (SU)

Ink:  Cool Caribbean, Bermuda Bay

Accessories:  Falling Snow stencil (Simon Says Stamp); Palm Fancy die (Hero Arts); Asti Buttefly die, Willoughby Butterfly die (Memory Box); translucent embossing paste (Dreamweaver)

TAWS December Release Sneak Peek Day Two

Bazinga!  Welcome to the second day of sneak peeks for The Alley Way Stamps!  Today I've got a fun card to show you with some images from the soon-to-be released Bubbling Over that will appeal to the scientist in all of you!  For a chance to win this stamp set keep reading!

This ain't no Sheldon Cooper, but I love him all the same!  Finally, the perfect image for this mathematical washi tape that I love so much!  (The Wanna Sketch was perfect to show it off)!

For a chance to win this stamp set just leave a comment on THIS POST at The Alley Way Stamps blog and by sharing that sneak peek on Facebook.  Be sure to leave a comment on THIS POST for each that you do by 9:30 TAWS time.

Good luck!

colourQ 202

Tuesday around here means a new palette is up at colourQ and a card of mine to share using those colors.  This week Arielle found a pillow and some bedding with some great colors that inspired some pretty awesome cards from the design team.  Here's mine:

A few days ago I had seen the new-to-me Wanna Sketch challenge and liked the layout. I began to design some cards in my head then realized that the colourQ colors would be perfect for what I had in mind.  I waffled a bit about what to do for the main image on my tag before deciding on layering this Verve flower.

Be sure to check out the cards from the colourQ design team, then link up your own creation!

Supplies:

Stamps: Bloomin' Marvelous (SU); Dream Big (Verve)

Accessories:  Lorelai Outline Leaf die (Poppystamps); Scallop Flowers die (Verve); Tag Sale #5 die (Papertrey Ink); Daffodil Delight button (SU); baker's twine (American Crafts); crochet thread