Freshly Made Sketches 25

Today I've got my card for Freshly Made Sketches but first I want to welcome our two new guest designers for March.  Allisa and Narelle have been long-time players in our challenge and the Freshly Made Sketches team is delighted to have them on board!

Linda has got an incredibly versatile sketch for us this week.  I know you're going to file it away for future use!  For my card this week, I grabbed my Twitterpated DSP and was determined to make a card with it no matter what. I had no idea that Baja Breeze and Riding Hood Red looked so fabulous together but once I got a look at these colors in this paper pack I was off and running.

I love how these two colors look together.  It's like soft and subtle meets bold and bright.  The label and sentiment are Verve, and are tied at the top with some Riding Hood Red taffeta ribbon.  The flower is from PTI and is finished off in the center with a Twitterpated Baja Breeze button.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have time to stop by the Freshly Made Sketches blog and check out the design team inspiration.  Then upload your creation so we can see how you have interpreted this sketch.  Here's our amazing design team:

Lesley Croghan

Linda Callahan

Cindy Hall

Tui Nathan

Jennifer Timko

Rita Wright

Allisa Chilton

Narelle Farrugia 

colourQ 127

Much to my surprise I decided to CASE myself for my colourQ card this week.  Arielle's colors are, as usual, fantabulous (I made that word up in case you're wondering) and for some reason called to mind a card that I made a while back that I thought would be a good fit for this challenge.

I actually made another card for this challenge first, but I wasn't happy with it so I went back to the drawing board.  I'm not sure why, but all of a sudden I remembered the card I made back in March of 2010 and I decided it would be a good thing to recreate it.  The only things that are different are the image stamp (the retired Artfully Asian) and the ribbon.  The sentiment is from All Holidays and is stamped within  the rectangle from Framed With Love.

This is a pretty big card and I made it to fit in a #10 envelope, which is the standard business-sized envelope.  I'm used to making our standard 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 -inch card so this giant was fun!  It's quite pretty in real life, despite my lousy photography.  One of these days I'm going to invest in a decent light so that I can capture a decent photo.

Now, our colourQ design team has got lots of inspiration for you, so be sure to pop on by and check out the creations there.  Then I hope you have time to join us for this fabulous challenge!

Deconstructed Sketch 41 and Stamping 411 Color Inspiration 168

I had forgotten that on the first Thursday of the month Stamping 411 hosts a color challenge.  This week I happened to discover it as I was checking out their latest sketch challenge.  And once I got a look at it there was no way I was not going to participate.

I love a card that has some basic black and a pop of color.  And lucky me, this one has three pops of color!   I used a wonderful piece of herringbone DSP from the retired Night & Day collection.  The flower is cut from the Flower Daisies #2 die and is finished off in the center with an antique brad.  I almost got away with no stamping on this card, until I decided to add a little sentiment from Tiny Tags.  My layout sketch is this week's Deconstructed Sketch.

 

This card has lots of wonderful layers that add some lovely heft to this card.  I know I'm usually pretty clean when it comes to my cards, but I must confess that I secretly love lots of layers.  There's something about picking up a card that feels somewhat heavy because it's got a lot going on!  Even still, I think I've stayed true to my clean and simple style.

And I can't forget to mention the ribbon.  I dyed some seam binding ribbon with Pink Pirouette reinker and it actually worked!  I know it seems rather white in the photo, but in real life, it is pink!  My last attempt at dying ribbon didn't work so well so I was very excited to see this little bit of success!

Thanks for stopping by!

MOJO 230 and Color Throwdown 181

I took a mini break from stamping the last couple of days.  But I kept seeing the latest MOJO sketch in my mind and it was calling to me to end my break and get busy in my stamp room.  So last night I sat down to tackle this sketch along with the Color Throwdown challenge.

This color challenge actually reminded me how much I like Certainly Celery.  It used to be one of my go-to colors, but for some reason I've neglected it lately.  Once I realized this, it prompted me to try and figure out why I'd been ignoring a favorite color.  I think it's because I like the color challenges I find so plentiful in blogland.  Back before I tried a color challenge, if I needed green I turned to Certainly Celery. If I needed brown I turned to Chocolate Chip.  You get the idea.  Then I discovered the diversity to be had in color challenges.  Participating got me to try other colors that I might not have used otherwise, sometimes at the expense of colors I used too much.

So, the good news is that I challenge myself creatively with a diverse color palette.  The bad news is ... Well, what do you know?  There is no bad news!

Freshly Made Sketches 24

It seems like I've been seeing a lot of butterflies in blogland and I realized that it's been quite some time since I've made a card with a butterfly.  I can feel spring in the air, so the timing is perfect.  Rita's fantastic sketch this week at Freshly Made Sketches is so versatile and I thought it was perfect for me to ink up and show off my favorite butterfly stamp.

I used some Rose Red dp from Thoroughly Modern which I thought looked pretty striking with the Basic Black card base.  But I ended up setting this card aside for a day because I felt like something was missing and I needed to think about it.  When I came back, I added the So Saffron ribbon which lead to the cardstock and little flower.

The gorgeous butterfly is from the retired set, Simple Friendship.  I inked it up with Rose Red then heat embossed it with clear embossing powder.  That makes cutting it out so much easier.  The little layered flower is from the same set and I finished it off with a black brad in the center.  And since mother's day will be here before you know it, I decided to get a jump start on a card for my mother and stamped it with this lovely sentiment from Well Scripted.

I hope you have a chance to join us this week at Freshly Made Sketches.  I think you'll agree that Rita's sketch has tons of possibilities.  It's so fun to see everyone's entries each week because everyone puts their own unique "stamp" on the card (if you'll pardon my pun)!  Here's the round up from our super-talented design team.

Lesley Croghan

Linda Callahan

Cindy Hall

Tui Nathan

Jennifer Timko

Rita Wright

Kim Singdahl

Tracey Vidal 

                                       

colourQ 126

For some reason my supply of birthday cards has dwindled to practically nothing.  I know I've made some, I'm just not sure where they went.  But I checked and double-checked and they're gone.  So I'm mounting a birthday card campaign and figured the colourQ challenge this week was a great place to start.

It seems like it's been ages since I've used Early Espresso, so it was nice to see that deep, rich color again!  The perfectly matched polka dotted designer paper is from Berry Blossoms (gotta love that Stampin' Up! matchy-match)!  I think the crowning achievement on this card, though is my carefully colored sentiment from Delightful Dozen.  I never quite know how it's going to come out when I color a stamp like this with individual markers, but this one came out quite nice despite a little bleed between the Pumpkin Pie and Daffodil Delight.  I thought the scallop and circles looked a little lost so I added the Lucky Limeade flourish and the Daffodil Delight button.

Now head on over to colourQ and check out the AMAZING creations of the design team.  Loads of inspiration there!  Then I hope you have a chance to join us for this yummy color challenge.

Paper Players 84

I'm happy to say that I was very productive in my stamp room this weekend.  That doesn't always happen so it's reason to celebrate in my book!  One of the cards I made was for the Paper Players sketch challenge this week.

I've got to confess that once I had this card made I realized that I forgot one layer.  I think I was so focused on getting the images stamped and arranged that I completely forgot about the vertical layer down the middle.  But I spent so much time fussing over the images that I decided to post what I had anyway.  Heartfelt apologies to LeAnne, who designed the sketch.

I finally inked up my Fresh Vintage stamp set after seeing so many gorgeous cards made with it.  For the center image I colored directly on the stamp with Baja Breeze, Poppy Parade and Pear Pizzazz markers.  The background paper is from Everyday Enchantment.  My"ribbon" is actually some crochet thread that I passed around the cardstock a few times.  I adhered a Verve stamp punched with my Word Window punch on top of it.

Thanks for stopping by!

CCMC190 and Color Throwdown 180

The colors this week at Color Throwdown threw me for a loop (pun intended)!  But I don't like to back down from a challenge once it is issued so I pressed on and came up with this.

This is the first time I inked up my Bordering on Romance stamp set and I would ordinarily color the leaves green, but duty calls and green had no place in my card today!  I don't have any Barely Banana anymore (it was a lovely color and I miss it) so I substituted So Saffron instead.  I colored the stamp set with my blender pens and laid down a little So Saffron in the center of the flowers and finished them up with Pumpkin Pie.  I wasn't sure what those circles were supposed to be (are they flowers, are they dew drops?)  so I used a little artistic license and colored them with some Bashful Blue.  Then using even more artistic license, I colored the leaves with Basic Gray!

The layout is from the latest Create With Connie and Mary challenge, which is a sketch this week.  

I wasn't sure how I was going to treat the ribbon portion of the sketch and then I remembered that I had some So Saffron buttons in my stash.  So I adhered one of those and tied a little bow through it with some Baker's Twine.

It's been quite a bit windy here today.  And the skies have been alternating between sun and clouds all day.  Many times there have been snowflakes flying around - sometimes with the sun still shining!  I've got to say that this has been a strange winter here in New England this year, but I hope that spring is just around the corner.  I'm looking forward to warm days and spending time in the garden!

Thanks for stopping by!