Freshly Made Sketches 370

Hello!  It's Wednesday so that means it's time for a new challenge from Freshly Made Sketches.  This week our sketch is designed by our frequent flyer Jen Timko.  As soon as I saw it I knew exactly what stamp set I wanted to use!

I knew that I wanted to use these confetti corners in place of the snowflakes but I didn't know what kind of sentiment I wanted in the center.  I chose this Mr & Mrs for no reason other than it was small enough to not take up too much space and still allow the corners to be the star!  I have no particular need for a wedding card, but when I do I'll be all set!  After I made this I saw that the challenge at Time Out Challenges is Loving so I call that serendipity!

Thanks for stopping by!  I hope we'll see you in the gallery at Freshly Made Sketches!  Just pop on over there for all the details plus some amazing inspiration from our design team.

Supplies
Stamps:  Holiday Confetti (The Ton); Congratulations (Simon Says Stamp)
Paper:  Classic Ivory (Flourishes)
Ink:  Versamark
Accessories:  gold embossing powder

Freshly Made Sketches 240!

Hello, hello and welcome to the latest edition of a card I made for Freshly Made Sketches.  The sketch this week is designed by Jen Brum who makes some seriously beautiful cards.  I pondered this sketch for a while then I was telling a friend at work about it.  I showed her the sketch and, without blinking, she said it looked like a cake.  Never one to ignore a perfectly good idea I turned the sketch on its side and went with it.

At first I was going to make the cake using layers in the colors of the challenge at CAS Colours & Sketches.  I got it all assembled then began looking for some images of candles in my stash to finish it off.  I didn't find any candles but I happened to spy an old wedding stamp set which had a very simple tiered cake with a few flowers on it for decoration.  So I scrapped my original idea and went with an all white cake and added a few wee flowers in the colors instead.

The top layer of my cake has some dripping icing that is actually a punch in the style of dripping goo.  I got it about a hundred years ago when I used to make little treat boxes that looked sort of like Herman Munster.  The dripping goo made a perfect set of bangs for ol' Herman!  I don't use that punch very often but it's one of those things I'll never get rid of (like my electric fry pan) because it comes in handy every so often!

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you'll hop on over to Freshly Made Sketches to check out the amazing cards from our design team.  There are so many cool renditions of this sketch you will surely find loads of inspiration there.  I hope to see you in the gallery!

Supplies
Paper:  White Linen (Ellen Hutson); Rose Red, Blushing Bride, So Saffron, Whisper White (SU)
Accessories:  Basic Pearls (SU); Drippy Goo punch (Martha Stewart)

My Cousin's Wedding

I'm sure like I sound like a broken record because I've been talking quite a bit about attending weddings over the last few months, but I've got another one today!  As far as I know it's the last one I'm going to this year.  Whew!  My cousin is getting married and the whole family is traveling "down the cape" (as we natives like to say when we are going to Cape Cod) so I thought I'd show you the card I made for the happy couple.  I can't take any credit for the design because I CASEd this card made by Sharon Johnson.

The wedding invitation was in shades of brown, so that's what I assumed the colors of the wedding party would be.  I like to make my wedding cards to match so I found some nice retired designer paper with pretty swirls (that I actually think is Close to Cocoa) and paired it with a layer of Chocolate Chip and some brown organdy ribbon.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have time to stamp today!

Ben & Deena's Wedding

Hello from Willliamsburg, Virginia!

Although I'm on vacation in beautiful Virginia, I couldn't resist posting a few cards that I made before I left for my trip.  Today I thought I'd show you the card that I made for my nephew's wedding.  If you are a regular reader of my blog, you might remember that I was traveling to Charlottesville, Virginia to see my nephew Ben get married this past weekend.  I wanted to make a special card for him and his bride, and I stumbled on this beauty and knew right away that I would CASE it.  Here's my version:

I wish the color of my flower was as bold as Sandi's but I think it looks pretty nice anyway.  And I didn't think that I had enough basic pearls to fill in all those little circles, so I used Liquid Pearls instead.  I've used Liquid Pearls many times before and have always been happy with how it works, but for some reason I had a problem with it when I made this card.  Instead of looking like a pearl (as it's supposed to), the liquid flattened out and actually inverted itself in some cases so instead of a nice rounded little pearly blob, I ended up with a small pearly volcanic crater!  Not to be discouraged, I added more Liquid Pearls and it ended up looking ok, but I'm still not sure what went wrong.  I think that either the size of my "pearl" was too big and it ended up flattening out as it dried or the humidity in the air caused it to dry that way.  I'll probably experiment with it again to try and determine what went wrong.

I'll leave you with a fun picture of the "Beta Bridge" in Charlottesville.  My nephew met his bride when they were freshman at the University of Virginia.  Apparently there is this bridge (the Beta Bridge) on the grounds of the University that is used by local students who paint it when they want to congratulate someone for one milestone or another.  Apparently, at the last minute, the groom's brother thought it would be a good idea to paint the bridge with a congratulatory message the night before the wedding and he enlisted the help of the wedding party to help.  This is what they came up with.

The right side of the bride has the names of everyone who helped with the painting.  By the way, they painted this at about midnight and I have no idea how they did such a good job in the dark without decent flashlights!  After the wedding ceremony, the newlyweds drove by this and saw the handiwork of their friends and family!  I wish I had seen their faces when they did!

Thanks so much for stopping by today!

Sketchbook Saturday 9

Today I went to the bridal shower for my cousin's fiancee.  Tomorrow I will go to their wedding and though I made a card for the occasion many weeks ago, I didn't really like it.  So when I got home from the shower, I was determined to sequester myself in my stamp room until I made something that I liked.

I checked out a bunch of sketches and then I realized that the Sketchbook Saturday challenge just might fit the bill!

I took a bit of liberty with the sketch so that in my card the main image layer is not as wide as the layer in the sketch.  (I hope this doesn't disaqualify me).

I had this very cute stamp of a bride and groom so I really wanted to use it for my card.  I embossed the bride and groom as well as the sentiment in copper embossing powder since that seemed to match the colors the bride and groom had chosen.  I'm actually basing the colors of my card on the colors of the wedding invitation that I got.  It was mostly blue and a deep shimmery brown and I had some cardstock that seemed to be pretty close to the colors of the invitation.  I thought it would be a good idea to make a card that coordinated with that.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have time to stamp today!

Friday Mashup 3 Wedding Card

This week the oh-so talented Lesley is the hostess over at the Friday Mashup blog.  Her challenge for us this week is to create a black and white card, a square card or to mash it up and combine the two.

My sister is going to a wedding at the end of the month and asked me to make her a wedding card.  I had been kicking a few ideas around in my head, but this challenge sealed the deal.

I decided to mash it up and combine the two challenges.  I wanted to do something a little unusual for my card, so I spent some time thinking about how I could make this card interesting.  Many years ago at a workshop at my friend Patti's house (hi Patti!!) we made a card using the technique I used here.  I stamped the background image (which is a retired background stamp called Floral) in white craft ink onto basic black cardstock.  Then using a stipple brush, I went over it with Pearl Ex.  The Pearl Ex creates this shimmery, iradescent look that doesn't really show up in the photo.  I sprayed hairspray on it to seal it and voila!  A very cool background!

I hope my sister likes it, but if not that's ok.  I've got a bunch of weddings to go to this summer so I'm sure I can use it for one of those.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have time to stamp today!

Bridal Shower Favors

Dottie, a high school friend of my husband asked me to help with some bridal shower favors for her step-daughter.  The colors are black and white with pink accents.  I've spent the last two days in my stamp room making some proto-types and I have been having so much fun!  Here are some of the things I've made.

I have to send the pictures to Dottie so that she can decide which one she likes best. I think she's expecting about 150-200 people at the shower so I tried to make favors that weren't overly complicated.  After all, we're going to have to asssemble these babies at some point!

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have time to stamp today!