Color Throwdown 169 and Deconstructed Sketch 28

The Color Throwdown challenge combined with the sketch at Deconstructed Sketch just called out to me to use my Snow Much Fun stamp set.

For some reason when I see blues I want to make snowmen!  Go figure!

I wanted to use this ribbon with the white stitching, but it's rather wide.  Along with my scallop border I think it's a little out of proportion and makes the card look top heavy, but the snowman is just so darn cute I like it anyway!  I colored the little birdies with Baja Breeze in the hopes that they might pass for bluebirds, but they don't!  Oops!

It's back to work for me tomorrow after a long, but very satisfying vacation.  I wonder if all my co-workers even remember what I look like!  Ha!

Thanks for stopping by today!

CCMC177 and Paper Players 74

I wanted to make a holder for a CD that I got for my nephew for Christmas.  The color challenge this week at Create With Connie and Mary gave me the perfect colors to make a masculine-inspired project.  Then I thought it would be fun to adapt the sketch challenge at The Paper Players to fit the CD.

A funny thing happened on my way to making this project.  I was typing away at this post and uploaded the picture only to realize that I used Sahara Sand instead of River Rock.  Argh!  I hate when I do that!  So back I go to recreate the holder in the correct color.  It actually was a little blessing in disguise because my original had a design flaw that was bugging me so this gave me the opportunity to fix it.

The long Night of Navy and Lucky Limeade layer is actually a belly band and the tilted layer and the to/from tag are attached to it so that whole thing slides off to get at the CD inside.  The tree is from Perfect Presentation which I inked up in Lucky Limeade then embossed with clear EP.  I mounted it on my tilted layer which I tried to dress up with a bit of faux stitching.  In real life it's kind of muddy and I wish I hadn't done it, but I'm sure my nephew won't be so critical!  The tag is from the aptly named To & From Tag and I added the button and baker's twine to jazz it up a bit.  I followed a tip from Nance at Canopy Crafts about using a straight image on a tilted panel, which I like very much!

Thanks for stopping by!

Friday Mashup 34 and FTL 168

As soon as I saw the sketch this week at Clean&Simple I got it in my mind to use my Dasher stamp.  I had been neglecting it all this Christmas card season and I aimed to rectify that.

Then I saw the Friday Mashup challenge and immediately recognized that this was a match made in heaven!  The mashup was to make a Christmas card using the colors of aqua, chocolate and white.

The problems began when I began to search for my Dasher stamp.  I couldn't find it anywhere.  But I made sure to look in every nook and cranny before I panicked.  Once I figured it was truly missing I sat down to figure out if I had perhaps loaned it to someone.  I called my sister and sure enough, she had it.  Then my nephew very graciously offered to drive to my house to give it to me so that I could make this card.  What a sweetie!  Disaster averted!

I used Taken With Teal as my aqua for the color challenge, and squeezed in a bit of matching designer paper from the Sweet Pea pack.  I suppose I could have used Tempting Turquoise instead, but I like the richer color of Taken With Teal.  I embossed the stamp with some EP called "Espresso" but it's really anything but.  It actually looks darker in this picture than it is in  real life, but it will have to do.

I hope that everyone has recovered from their "Black Friday" shopping.  I did not venture out into all that craziness, but I hope that if you did, you got a great bargain!

Freshly Made Sketches 12

Today I'm very excited to share that I am the hostess this week at Freshly Made Sketches!  This is the first time I have ever designed a sketch and I sure hope that everyone likes it.

I decided to interrupt my regular programming of autumn and Christmas themed cards to bring you a card with a decidedly spring-time look.

I broke out a couple of Verve stamps for this card and layered them on some Whisper White, Pink Pirouette, and a Basic Black Scallop circle.  I had a hankering to use my crimper (why do these urges hit us out of the blue sometimes?) so I crimped some Pear Pizzazz, wrapped it with a bit of linen thread and finished it off with a button. The itty bitty sentiment is from Tiny Tags.

The design team has some amazing inspiration for you so be sure to stop by and show them some love!

Lesley Croghan
Linda Callahan
Cindy Hall
Lauri Ingram
Tui Nathan
Christy Q
Jennifer Timko
Rita Wright

Friday Mashup 33 - It's a Tag!

I've been making tags for Christmas presents and thought that I'd try and turn the sketch challenge this week at The Friday Mashup into a tag.

And since I've been staring at some rosettes and my mini paper rosettes sizzix die has been neglected I decided to go the full monty and mashup the challenge!

I flipped the sketch to make the tag go the long way.  The base is Always Artichoke and matches perfectly with some of my Wintergreen DSP.  I added a layer of the musical notes from the Newsprint DSP because I saw it on another tag somewhere and thought it looked really cool.  I sponged all the edges in Early Espresso to give it a vintage feel.  And the little Merry Christmas sentiment is from Delightful Decorations.

Thanks for stopping by.  Tomorrow I'm hosting my first sketch challenge at Freshly Made Sketches so I hope you'll pop by to check it out!

Paper Players 73 and Stamping 411 Sketch 230

I absolutely loved Jaydee's challenge for us this week at The Paper Players.  The challenge is to make a card that is clean and simple using the colors Night of Navy, Whisper White and silver.

The design team cards are absolutely gorgeous and really got my creative juices flowing.  So I thought I'd make a card combing this challenge with the sketch at Stamping 411.

I wish I didn't have such a hard time getting a decent photo of a white card.  The color is always off.  Argh!  But anyway, as you can see, I substituted the square scallop from the sketch for some plain rectangles because I really wanted to use the tree from Season of Joy and it didn't look so great on a square.  (What I really need are some rectangle scallop dies and my problem would be solved)!

I embossed the tree and the sentiment (also from Season of Joy) in silver embossing powder.  And I don't mind saying that in real life, it looks fantastic.  Not a stray piece of embossing powder to be had!  Thank you Embossing Buddy!!

I'm in the home stretch of my vacation and today I'm homebound while my car is getting a ding on my bumper fixed.  My plan is to stay focused and finish up my Christmas cards.  And if I can squeeze it in, I'll try to work on some Christmas treats too.

Thanks for stopping by!

PPA120

I made a card for the Pals Paper Arts sketch challenge this week.  It involves a snowman...with a bit of a tan.

When I saw the sketch, I got it in my head that I wanted to use one of the snowmen from Snow Much Fun.  Then I got it in my head that I wanted to use some of my Jolly Holiday designer paper.  So I put the two together.

It wasn't until I started to color my snowman that I realized something wasn't quite right.  I think it's rather hard to tell in the photo, but this card is made with Very Vanilla.  Including the layer with the snowman stamped on it.  When have you ever seen an off-white snowman?  I'll tell you.  Never.  But rather than scrap the card and start all over, I kept my somewhat strange colored snowman.  He's kind of growing on me!

Thanks for stopping by!

Color Throwdown 168 and Sketchbook Saturday 38

I don't mind saying that I was a little lot intimidated by the colors this week at the Color Throwdown.

The colors look great together, but I was unsure if I could pull something off that I actually liked.  Especially since I feel like I'm out of practice and my mojo is apparently on vacation.  But then I saw Chupa's Sketchbook Saturday challenge and I had an Idea.

Admittedly I changed my mind a couple of times about what stamps I was going to use as I was putting this together, but I'm happy with how the end result turned out.

The So Saffron DP is from the Sweet Pea pack.  (Seriously, I have so much of this paper, I'll be old and gray before I ever use it all up)!  The friend sentiment is from Simple Friendship and while I was originally going to use the butterfly from the same set, I ended up going with the one from Great Friend. I inked it first in So Saffron then sponged it lightly with Riding Hood Red.  Then I heat embossed it with clear EP before I cut it out.  A few pearls down the center and I was done!

Not too shabby for a sunny Saturday morning.  I think I might stick around in my stamp room for while longer today to make sure my creative juices keep flowing.  Thanks so much for stopping by!