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)

Freshly Made Sketches 174

Hello!  It's Wednesday so it's time to bring you a new sketch from Freshly Made Sketches!  This week our sketch is brought to you all the way from Germany from our hostess Cindy Lovell.  It's a classic sketch that can be interpreted a bunch of different ways.

I'm pretty sure I've made a card very similar to this before.  It's a formula I like.  I see a diagonal layer and it makes me want to break out a bunch of colors and put them all together rainbow style.  I had been kicking around the idea of playing along with the Fusion challenge because I really loved the colors in the inspiration photo.  I had an aborted attempt at following along last weekend and though that card didn't pan out I was determined to use those colors somehow.  My little rainbow was perfect for them!

My friend Sylvia mentioned a daisy die from Sizzix recently and since I had forgotten that I even owned it decided it was high time it saw the light of day.  For the center I used the old build-a-brad from SU.  At least I think that's what it is called.  The glare from the light is obscuring the center of it, but it's actually a button image.  

Speaking of glare from the light, my new bulb has arrived so lighting my cards should be MUCH easier now.  I had no idea how much I relied on the white light from my photography bulbs until one of them bit the dust.  I can't even describe all the gyrations I went through this past week trying to get decent light.  I'll make sure I've always got an extra on hand now.

My friends at Freshly Made Sketches have made some beauties this week so I hope you check them out and join us in the gallery with your own take on the sketch!

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:

Stamps:  Thank You (Heidi Swapp); Sunny Days (Verve)

Paper:  White (Spectrum Noir); Dark Chocolate, Hawaiian Shores, Terracotta Tile (Papertrey Ink)

Ink:  Dark Chocolate, Hawaiin Shores (Papertrey Ink)

Accessories:  Daisies #2 die (Sizzix); Build A Brad (SU)

colourQ 280

I can't believe it's been nearly a week since I've posted anything new here!  I found myself mojo-less this past week and despite attempting several times to spend some quality time with my stamps and ink the quality of what I was turning out stunk!

But I was determined to get back into the swing of things with the new palette at colourQ.  The colors are bold and could be monochromatic, but the addition of gold makes it just a tad more interesting!  The inspiration comes from this bracelet.

This is actually the second card I made for this challenge.  The first one I made on Sunday afternoon and was filled with flowers.  But when I woke up Monday I took a good look at it and decided it was't that good and scrapped it for this color block version.  I love how these colors complement each other and yet each have their own personality.

The layout of my card comes from the latest retro sketch.  I don't usually do vertical sentiments but that skinny vertical layer up the middle is perfect for it.  The flowers are actually adorable button dies and I "thread" a tiny sliver of white card stock through the them to mimic actual thread.

Well, it's back to work for me today.  Yesterday was a holiday from work (I really, really love three day weekends) and I put it to good use running some errands, doing my income taxes (boo) and getting caught up with blog stuff.  Thanks for stopping by and do pop on over to colourQ and see what the rest of the design team has got up to this week.  I hope you can join us in the gallery!

Supplies:

Stamps:  Live Love Life (Papertrey Ink)

Paper:  Blackberry Bliss, Raspberry Ripple, Wisteria Wonder, Gold Foil, Whisper White (SU)

Ink:  Wisteria Wonder, Blackberry Bliss (SU)

Accessories:  Button Stacks die, Button Stacks II die (Papertrey Ink)

Freshly Made Sketches 173

There's an awesome new sketch up at Freshly Made Sketches!  This week our hostess is Kim and I'm pretty sure you are going to love this sketch!

Now, in case you are thinking that your eyes are deceiving you when you see this sketch, it does in fact appear to be tilted.  It's not (and you can take out your ruler to prove it), but is in fact a cool optical illusion which I presume is brought on by the layers that actually are tilted!

As you can see, I forgot to tilt one of my layers but my brain and my body are tired from the ridiculous amount of snow that we've gotten here in the last two weeks.  My new part-time job is shoveling snow and I've got to tell you that the pay stinks.  All I get for my troubles are sore muscles and a sincere longing for summer.  I ought to be used to the snow, after all this is New England and we do get our share of snow.  But it would be better if it was spread out over the entire winter instead of just the last couple of weeks!

But enough of my weather troubles, lets talk about crafty stuff.  The colors for my card come from the latest challenge at The Paper Players.  The colors were such that I wanted to use them layered together using this Altenew stamp set, but truthfully it took me a long time to put this together.  The images that go together are not necessarily next to each other on the acetate sheet and I really think they should be.  Most of them are but there are a few that don't seem obvious in how they layer together.  Once I crack the code I'm going to label them in some way so that it's easier to use them.   But don't get me wrong, they are beautiful stamps and the end result is worth the work!

Our fabulous Freshly Made Sketches design team have really rocked the sketch this week so I hope you check them out and join us in the gallery.  We love it when you do!

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:

Stamps:  Painted Flowers (Altenew); Another Thank You (SU)

Paper:  Basic Black, Real Red, Whisper White (SU)

Ink:  Calypso Coral, Real Red (SU); Onyx Black (Versafine)

Accessories:  Stitched Rounded Rectangle STAX (My Favorite Things); Honeycomb stencil (Heidi Swapp); black embossing paste (Dreamweaver)

colourQ 279

We've got a bold and dramatic color palette for you this week at colourQ based on this vintage print.  The challenge this week is to use red, black and newsprint!

Good thing I keep this old DSP around because I never know when I'm going to need it!  Using newsprint brings out my secret crush on Tim Holtz and makes me want to get messy.  But before I do that my CAS sensibilities slap me upside the head and I manage to restrain myself before I get too carried away.  One of these days I'm going to put the CAS me in the closet and really go crazy!  But today I have to satisfy myself with this toned down card and playing along with the Cardabilities sketch.

I heat embossed the circles in black and the top ones look funky in this picture due to my recent CATastrophic light issues.  To fill up some of the space around them I added a few ink splats then layered my flowers over all that.  

The colourQ design team have some beautiful creations for you this week so I hope you'll stop by and admire them.  Then, of course, you should join us in the gallery!

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:

Stamps:  Grunge Cirque, Hashtags (Tim Holtz); Funky Florals (Papertrey Ink); Textures 1, Textures 2 (Florileges Design)

Paper:  Basic Black, Real Red, Very Vanilla, First Edition DSP (SU)

Ink:  Real Red (SU); Onyx Black (Versafine); Distress Embossing Ink

Accessories:  Banner Trio die (WPlus9); black embossing powder 

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)

Freshly Made Sketches 172

Hello!  Hello!  It's time for a brand new sketch from Freshly Made Sketches!  This week Linda is our hostess.  Don't be scared by the big ol' heart on the sketch because you know that you can use whatever shape you want!

I knew almost right away that I wanted to use a butterfly on my card, but I got the idea to layer it over a tag while I was putting this card together.  And using embossing paste over a chevron stencil for the horizontal layer was a last minute decision too.  Originally I was going to do a little upcycling by using a textured piece of kraft paper that started out in life as a coffee cozy.  Unfortunately it wasn't wide enough so I had to come up with Plan B.  And the colors on my card are from the latest challenge at As You See It.

Thanks for stopping by.  And I hope you can join us at Freshly Made Sketches.  Hop on by to check out the cards made by our fabulous design team!

Supplies:

Stamps:  Group Hugs (Paper Smooches); Jumbo Abstract Art (My Favorite Things); Textures 1 (Florileges Design)

Paper:  Classic White (Flourishes); Crushed Curry (SU); Vellum (Papertrey Ink)

Ink:  Crushed Curry, Calypso Coral (SU)

Accessories:  Tag Sale #5 die (Papertrey Ink); Cheviot Butterfly die, Delaney Butterfly die (Poppystamps); Chevron Pattern stencil (Simon Says Stamp); enamel dot (Doodlebug Design); embossing paste, white seam binding ribbon, crochet thread

colourQ 278

The new palette at colourQ inspired me to make a Valentine.  No surprise considering the colors were inspired by these adorable treat boxes.

The pumpkin pie was a bit of a stumper for me and I wondered how I was going to add it to my card.  I ended up throwing some orange sequins in my little shaker.  It's subtle but I like how it adds a bit of fun color to the shades of red and pink.

My sketch is based on the newest one at Fusion.  I had seen a few shaker cards recently (including one from the Fusion design team) so I thought I'd make one of those.  I made one before for a baby shower and it was a big hit with the recipient so I thought one for a Valentine would be cute!  And lo and behold, Virginia's View Challenge is to make a shaker card!

Another snow storm hit yesterday and left about a foot of snow behind.  After last week's blizzard I can't seem to catch a break!  I just keep repeating the mantra "spring is coming, spring is coming."  I know it's true but it sure doesn't feel that way right now.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you take some time to join us at colourQ!  The ladies there have made some beautiful cards for you to see!

Supplies:

Stamp:  The Big, the Bold and the Happy (Winnie & Walter); Splatdrip (Tim Holtz)

Paper:  Classic White (Flourishes); Real Red, Melon Mambo (SU)

Ink:  Pretty in Pink, Real Red (SU)

Accessoires:  Femme Frames (Mama Elephant); Pierced Fishtail Flags STAX (My Favorite Things); Sugar Blend sequins (Avery Elle); Halloween sequins (Studio Calico)