A Christmas Card....Really??

Yes, I've done a Christmas card! I'm determined this year to make at least one a week, and Sparkle's Christmas Card Challenge blog is a good place to start! They had a great sketch this week, and you know how much I love sketches! ;-) Also, my friend Shaela is on their team, so I thought I'd play this week.I was looking through my Papertrey Ink Christmas stamps (which really don't get enough use these days) and found Communique Curves which has never seen ink.
The dp is from Webster's Pages from the Holiday Collection called Home for the Holidays & Winter Wings and it's so pretty! I cut this one down to fit the card (the papers are in a 6 x 6 pad). The wreath in the stamp set was stamped in Always Artichoke and the berries in Riding Hood Red. I then sparkled them up with some red stickles. The ribbon is Riding Hood Red taffeta. I punched some ferns in Always Artichoke and Riding Hood Red with the Martha Stewart punch. Some sponging, nesties, and dew drops and the card was done! The first one for Christmas 2011! Let's hope this isn't the only one I do until December 2011! LOL!!!

Thanks for stopping by my blog! Have a great day!

Recipe
Stamps: Communique Curves (PTI)
Paper: Vintage cream, always artichoke, riding hood red, Webster's Pages Holiday dp
Ink: Always artichoke, riding hood red, antique linen distress ink
Accessories: Nesties, MS fern punch, dew drops, red stickles, dimensionals

Buzzin' By

Hi everyone! I was able to do a lot of crafting over the long weekend. I saw a lot of challenges that I wrote down to play in and this was one of them. The Shabby Tea Room has a pretty color inspiration picture that is devine! I also saw that the Moxie Fab World blog has a challenge going on called Gray is the New Black. This was the picture I was inspired by as well. Lots of white with bits of yellow and gray.I was also inspired by a challenge from my LSS, Buffalo Stamps & Stuff. Their challenge is to brayer an embossed background. For my layout, I liked the Clean & Simple FTL123.
Combining all three challenges, I came up with this card. It's going to be a belated birthday card for my niece. I didn't put a sentiment on the outside like in the sketch. I forgot about that! The inspiration card made for the Buffalo Stamps & Stuff used this same bee folder, which I realized I had! The card came together easily using the other challenges. I brayered the embossed layer with Scattered Straw distress ink to match the color inspiration. I then used gray (a neutral that I also pulled from the color inpiration) as my base and dp (from SU). We were supposed to use lots of white on our card for the color inspiration, so I backed the embossed piece with a white layer. The ribbon is So Saffron grosgrain. For the image, I went with this little bee from Just Buzzin' By (SU). I cut and embossed it with a nestie and swept it with some of the Scattered Straw ink. I finished it off with some pretty silver pearls and star dust stickles on the wings.

That's it for today! Thanks for stopping by!

Recipe
Stamps: Just Buzzin' By (SU)
Paper: Neenah white, basic gray cardstock and dp
Ink: Memento tuxedo black, scattered straw distress ink, copic markers
Accessories: Nesties, embossing folder, silver pearls, ribbon, star dust stickles, brayer, dimensionals

Color Throwdown and Sweet Sunday Challenges

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day! We here in the states are celebrating this national holiday for a great man! This day is supposed to be a day on not a day off, so I hope you are "on" today and doing something worthwhile! I'm hoping to be feeling better today! We'll see how the day goes!

Last night I had some energy to make some cards, and I chose to use the colors from the fabulous challenge blog Color Throwdown. They also have a request to send your card to a young woman in our stamping community named Katie who is going through a rough time right now. You can find the link on the CTD post. I'm sending my card to her to hopefully brighten her day. Here are the colors the CTD challenged us to use this week.
I also chose to play in the Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge. I love Karen's sketches and use them regularly. This is the 100th sketch, so it's extra special! This card came together so easily, I couldn't believe it! I had all the cardstock, dp, and a great stamp set right at hand! This is what I came up with. This is the first time using the Early Espresso. I had to open the new package (actually I didn't even realize I had this cardstock). The dp is Soft Sky designer prints and Razzleberry Lemonade from SU. The ribbon is Melon Mambo grosgrain. The sentiment and flourish are from Verve's Blue Skies which is stamped in Soft Sky and Memento Rich Cocoa. I thought the sentiment was perfect for what I needed. I added the brown pearls and then thought it was still missing something. I went through my punches and found this butterfly punch from SU (another tool I didn't realize I had!). It coordinates with their set Flight of the Butterfly. I stamped it in the Soft Sky and Rich Cocoa also and added star dust stickles for some sparkle.

All in all I'm pleased with this card. Now I just have to finish off the inside and send it off to Katie. I hope you can do the same.

Thanks for stopping in today! Love to hear your comments!

Recipe
Stamps: Blue Skies (Verve), Flight of the Butterfly (SU)
Paper: Neenah white, early espresso, soft sky, melon mambo, Soft Sky designer prints and Razzleberry Lemonade (SU)
Ink: Soft sky, Memento rich cocoa
Accessories: Nesties, grosgrain ribbon, pearls, butterfly punch, star dust stickles, scalloped border punch, corner rounder, dimensionals

Valentine Greetings

Hi everyone! I was so excited to have this three-day weekend arrive and guess what? I came down with some sort of bug! I wasn't feeling that great all week, and then yesterday it hit HARD! I was on the couch all day! And today is better but not much! However, I did get down to my craft room to stamp later in the day.

Yesterday, while I was on the couch, I did get some productive commenting in and looked at some interesting challenges. I loved Mona's CR84FN color challenge of red, kraft, and brown...my type of yummy colors!I love sketches and the Card Patterns sketch this week caught my attention. So I combined the two and came up with this pretty Valentine's card. I started with this paper from My Mind's Eye called Lush. I remember seeing my fellow PMS member, Tina Hale, use it and had to order it. That was about 6 months ago! I was waiting for the perfect card to use it on! Now I changed the sketch a little (sorry Card Pattern team), but I wanted a heart on it for a Valentine card. The kraft on this card is from a Starbucks sleeve. I love my Chai tea and went out for a bit today to get some fresh air and my tea, so I decided to incorporate it into this card. The velvet button is threaded with some brown and white baker's twine. The sentiment is from an SU set called Grateful Greetings stamped in real red. I added the red glitter dots on the opposite side from the sketch because it suited my card better. I left the brown grosgrain ribbon hanging off the edge a bit...I just like that look!

Thanks for stopping in today! I hope you are enjoying your weekend!

Recipe
Stamps: Grateful Greetings (SU)
Paper: Vintage cream, real red, Lush (My Mind's Eye)
Ink: Real red
Accessories: Nesties, glitter dots, corner rounder, grosgrain ribbon, dimensionals

Just Us Girls Color Challenge #67

Happy long weekend everyone! I just love them! Today the Just Us Girls team has a fab color challenge for you. We did something different this week and had our Guest Designer, Carla Suto, choose the colors! And I love the colors she picked! She based her colors on the Graphic 45 collection Once Upon a Springtime. I love Graphic 45 papers and while I didn't have this collection, I did have the Le Romantique collection (which I received in a gift exchange from Bonnie Sharp) that had the same colors. So here's what I did.

I chose a sketch from My Favorite Things Wednesday Stamp Club and a stamp set I've had for a while and haven't used from Verve called Blue Skies. I distressed the piece of Aqua Mist with tea dye distress ink to tone it down a bit. The beautiful butterfly is a Spellbinder die that I cut with Vintage Cream cardstock, then sponged with Cameo Coral and Cool Caribbean inks. Then I distressed it a bit more with the tea dye ink and added star dust stickles for that sparkle I love! The half circle was cut with a Coluzzle. Remember that thing? My nesties were too small so I had to pull that out. Fun little tool!

Stop by the JUGs blog to see the beautiful creations form the team and our Guest Designer, Carla Suto! Make sure to leave them some love!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great long weekend too! :-)

Recipe

Stamps: Blue Skies (Verve)

Paper: Vintage cream and aqua mist (PTI), Le Romantique (Graphic 45)

Ink: Chocolate chip, cameo coral, cool caribbean, tea dye distress ink

Accessories: Nesties, butterfly die, coluzzle, star dust stickles, pearls, dimensionals

You Make the Grade!

Hi there! My resolution (or desire) this year is to post on days when I don't have any design team requirements. I love my design teams, but sometimes I just want (need!) to use all the fab stamps I have accumulated and don't get a chance to use. Last night was one of those days. I came home from work, ate dinner that my hubby cooked, cleaned the kitchen, and went down to my stamp room and started organizing and cleaning everything that has been left on chairs, the table, etc. Then I started a card around 9:30 pm just because! Well, not really. I made this card for my niece.Maria, my lovely 16 year old niece, is being inducted into the National Honor Society tomorrow and I just had to make a card to celebrate her accomplishment. I have several Pure Innocence Girls from My Favorite Things, and have only used a couple. I thought this one was perfect for Maria's celebration!

She loves green, so I tried to add as much of it as I could. I started with this Green at Heart dp from Basic Grey and a fab sketch from the Sweet Sunday Sketch challenge. Karen, at SSSC, used a PI girl on her card and that's what gave me the inspiration to use this one. I colored her with copic markers, with the exception of the sweater. I paper pieced that with one of the papers I used on the card. I love paper piecing! The scallop circle is swept with peeled paint distress ink while still in the die. The scalloped border was cut with the Die-namics Jumbo Scallop die. The ribbon is from my huge collection of ribbon! I finished it off with a button tied with the green ribbon. I added some star dust stickles to the heart in her hair and the buttons on her shoes. (I can't have a card without that stuff! LOL!!)

I hope you enjoyed today's post! I'd love to hear what you think, and hope to see you soon!

Recipe
Stamps: Make the Grade (MFT)
Paper: PTI white, Green at Heart (BG)
Ink: Memento tuxedo black, many copic markers, peeled paint distress ink
Accessories: Nesties, die-namics jumbo scallop die, ribbon, dimensionals, button

Paper Makeup Stamps - Review Day

Today is the last review day for the Paper Makeup Stamps January release. If you haven't seen the entire release yet, please click here to see it all! It was a great release! And don't forget...we won't have another release until March because we are going to do releases every other month and do reviews on the off months.

I'm using one of the new Moody Girls called Moody for France. And since it's French related, I used papers from the new PMS kit called Mon Cheri. Isn't this Moody Girl great? I just love this line from Paper Makeup Stamps. They are so fun to color and you can get really creative with your coloring too!

Katie put together a great kit! The papers are so pretty and they are super functional! The piece the Moody Girl is mounted on was cut and embossed with the largest nestie in that set, then I trimmed it around the embossed line to make it smaller. I then cut and embossed the pink piece with the same nestie and layered them together. This gave me a little bit of pink I wanted as a border. The XO and hearts border was from part of another piece of dp in the kit. I just cut what I needed and layered it on top. The sentiment was another part of the same dp. I just cut one "i love you". I don't know if I like it because it's a much brighter pink, but I wanted to do a simpler card because this is for my hubby for Valentine's Day. It wasn't planned that way, but when I took a look at that Moody Girl, I thought she looked a little like me! So I went with it! Let's see if he realizes that when I give it to him! LOL!

If you'd like to see more, stop by the PMS blog. A few more of the PMS DT are showing off some of the new release too! Thanks for stopping in today! Enjoy your week!