Inkspirations 56 and Friday Mashup 30

Do you know what I mean when I say that I checked out a color challenge and said to myself:  "wow, I love those colors!"  I'm guessing you do!  Well, that's what I thought when I saw the latest Inkspirations Color Challenge.  A little help from the Friday Mashup sketch challenge and I was off!

I have long been of the belief that there is no better red on the face of the earth than Cherry Cobbler.  I absolutely adore Baja Breeze and, of course, Whisper White makes the world go 'round.  But the kicker here for me was the Basic Black.  If used sparingly with colors like these, I think it can really make a card pop!  And that is what I envisioned when I sat down to make this card.

And I tried something new with this card:  paper piecing.  I stamped the vase on a piece of Baja Breeze designer paper from the long retired Urban Garden collection and carefully placed it in the proper position.  I think it's a nice way to add a little interest to the image.

It's been a few days since I've provided a snow update, so I thought I'd let you know how it's going around here.  On Wednesday we had quite a bit of rain, which ordinarily would be a good way to melt some of the snow, but unfortunately it caused quite a bit of flooding (and many roof collapses as well).  A lot of the storm drains on the roads are covered in snow, so all that rain and melting snow had no place to go!  Add to that, below freezing temperatures at night and we've got giant frozen puddles all over the place.  On my drive home from work I encountered a series of card accidents involving nine cars that all basically slid around the road due to the icy conditions.  Thankfully no one was seriously hurt, but I'm pretty sure I'm not alone when I wish for the warmer temperatures of spring!

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

PPA79 Birthday

Yesterday, the big Brown truck paid a visit to my house!  And that big Brown truck left me a nice box of goodies on my doorstep!  I think it might be a while before I manage to work my way through that box of goodies, but never fear:  I will persevere!  I did manage to break out one new stamp set:  Bring on the Cake!

Being Thursday and all, I checked out the Pals Paper Arts challenge this week.  I thought it was a rather unusual color combo.

A lot of times, when I see an unusual color combo I go running as fast as possible in the opposite direction, but sometimes I see colors that I really like individually and figure that I ought to be able to think of something with them all together.

I had a vague notion of making this card for my sister's birthday in June.  I'm not sure you can tell in the picture, but the "happy," "4," "7," and "th" are in Ruby Red while the rest of the numbers are in Rich Razzleberry.  I'm not sure she'll be all that thrilled to have her age highlighted for all posterity, but I kind of like the idea of this card!

And by the way, she's not 74!

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

Color Lab Challenge 27

It's Thursday and time for another challenge from the Color Lab!

I can't tell you how wonderful it is to see beautiful colors that to me are so representative of spring (or summer).  In my neck of the woods, this winter has been all about the SNOW!  I've got snow banks in my front yard that are officially taller than me!  So I was extra-happy to think about these warm colors as I contemplated what kind of card I would make here.

I decided to go with a birthday theme again, and to use that scrunchy ribbon technique that is so popular!  I embossed the sentiment here with black embossing powder because I really wanted it to show up.

Thanks for stopping by today and don't forget to pop on over to the Color Lab, check out the fabulous colors this week, and create something!  We'd love to see what you do!

Color Throwdown 127 Birthday

I may have mentioned a time or two that I love earthy colors, Crumb Cake in particular.  So when I saw the Color Throwdown challenge this week with both Crumb Cake and Early Espresso, I was powerless to resist!

A few weeks ago, I made a very cool card (to my mind anyway) using the MOJO171 sketch challenge.  I really liked the layout and I thought about that layout when I contemplated this color challenge.

I did take a bit of poetic license when it came to the "happy birthday" sentiment.  My oval panel wasn't in the sketch, but I thought the card looked a little naked without it!

I can hardly believe it, but my supply of birthday cards was actually getting dangerously low so I figured I  better start making some of those.  I think this is a pretty cute one to add to my stash!

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

ColourQ 70 Thank You

When Stampin' Up! announced last year that oodles of colors would be "retiring" there were many colors that I had no problem bidding a farewell to.  But there were also many that I couldn't bring myself to part with.  One of those colors was Cameo Coral.  I still have quite a bit of card stock left so it came in handy when I saw the latest challenge over at the ColourQ blog.

I thought this color combo was really interesting.  It's kind of fresh and fun, but also earthy at the same time.  To my mind, the Poppy Parade and Blushing Bride made the fun bits, while the Cameo Coral and Early Espresso grounded the whole combo.

I obviously decided to go with a shabby chic look here.  I know it's hard to see but there is a small panel peeking out over the Cameo Coral panel that actually is Poppy Parade.  I distressed the edges and sponged it with Early Espresso but I think the color may be hard to recognize.  The Cameo Coral panel is stamped with French Script and also distressed around the edges with Early Espresso.  The Very Vanilla panel with the floral image and the sentiment is actually distressed around the edges and mounted on a Blushing Bride panel that is also distressed around the edges.

Now, you may be wondering what that acrylic block is doing in the picture.  Well, for some reason I couldn't get this card to stay open when I was trying to take the picture.  It kept trying to flatten out, pancake style.  So I needed to anchor it to something to keep it open.  Hence the block.  At least it's clear!

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

Friday Mashup Sweet Sunday Valentine

When I saw these colors from the Friday Mashup challenge, I did not immediately think of Valentine's Day, but as you shall see, that is where my thoughts ended up!

Actually, when I first say these colors I thought of sherbet ice cream, but that's probably a story for another day!  However, I liked them enough that I wanted to give the challenge a try!  Being Sunday, I checked out the Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge and decided that these two challenges were a go!

I have not used the owl punch nearly as much as I should, so I thought it would be good to use it here in place of the circle.

I love how you can make the eyeballs on this little guy look up, down, or all around!  On this card, I think he's watching all those hearts float away!

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

Stamping 411 Sketch Challenge 188

Today I thought I would participate in the Stamping 411 sketch challenge.

Do you find that inspiration comes from the many different places?  I do!  One of the design team cards got me thinking about the Newsprint dsp which I like very much, but had not used in quite a while.  So I settled on using that paper and a color scheme of very vanilla, basic black, and a little bit of real red.  Then I sat back and thought about what stamp set I would like to use.  All of my stamp sets are stacked in a bookcase that I got at Ikea so usually the ones on top are the only ones I see.  But today, one of my stacks was out out alignment so there was one stamp set peeking out from the bottom.  That one was Greenhouse Garden.  As one of my co-workers likes to say:  "light dawns on marble head" and I was off!

I went WAY into the vault on this one and found some red embossing powder that Stampin' Up! used to sell about a million years ago.  Actually it wasn't a million years ago.  I checked.  The last catalog I see it in is the 2006/2007 one.  But that's still a long time ago!  It shows up really nicely on the basic black cardstock.

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

Color Throwdown 126

It's no secret that I love earthy colors better than most.  If I see a color challenge that involves Crumb Cake, I heed the call.  The same goes for Early Espresso.  I thought Chocolate Chip was the brown of my dreams until I was introduced to Early Espresso.  In my opinion, this is a brown-lover's idea of heaven.  So this week's Color Throwdown challenge was irresistible to me.

And as if the lure of Early Espresso wasn't enough, this challenge also included an old favorite:  Kiwi Kiss.  I don't have much of this color left in my stash, so I have to use it sparingly.  I love how well it pairs with Early Espresso.

I wanted to do a little bit of tone-on-tone for this card so I embossed the By Definition background stamp with clear embossing powder on a panel of Early Espresso that I layered on top of my Early Espresso card base.  I wish it showed up better in the photo, but it looks so shiny and interesting in real life!

By the way, if anyone is keeping track of the snow storms that have hit my neck of the woods, today I woke up to almost another foot of snow!  It seems like every two weeks or so, we get a major snow storm here!  My snow blower deposits most of the snow from my driveway onto to my front yard, and I am not exaggerating when I say that the snow is about 5 feet deep there!!  I don't expect to see grass until June or so!  Anyway thanks for stopping by and I hope you have time to stamp today!