First Holiday Card

Oh well, I left my camera at a friends house so I couldn't get this picture uploaded in time to enter Beate's weekend challenge. No big deal, I had fun with the challenge anyway! It gave me a chance to make my first Holiday Card of the Season. I'm starting to get in the mood to buy some more Christmas stamps!

The base of this card is Soft Sky and the patterned papers are from the Wintergreen collection of Designer Series papers. I love the colors in this set of papers. I used "The Snowflake Spot" stamp sets for the stamped images in Always Artichoke ink. The snowflake is embellished with some Dazzling Diamonds glitter that I applied with my 2-way glue pen and a rhinestone brad from my Pretties kit. For the ribbon embellishment, I used White Taffeta ribbon and threaded it through a clear bead from the Pretties kit and tied knots on both sides of the bead. The "Joy" embellishment was created using circle punches and my large oval punch, along with some silver brads.

Stamps: The Snowflake Spot

Papers: Soft Sky, White, Certainly Celery, Buckaroo Blue, Always Artichoke, Wintergreen DS

Inks: Always Artichoke

Accessories: Bead and Rhinestone Brad (Pretties kit), silver brads, Dazzling Diamonds, Taffeta Ribbon, Circle & Oval punches

True Friend Thank You

I am so pleased with how this one turned out! This is my submission for Beate's Fresh and Fun Weekend Challenge. I just loved this sketch, and I hope to use it some more this week with some different themes. Once again I used my newest stamp set "True Friend" along with the very versatile Apple Cider paper.

The card base for this one is River Rock, sponged with Chocolate Chip around the edges. The background is Apple Cider paper with the corners punched with the ticket corner punch and the edges sponged with Chocolate Chip as well. The flower was stamped once on Very Vanilla with Chocolate Chip Ink. Then on a scrap piece I used my markers to color the blossom with Really Rust and Perfect Plum, and then I stamped it, cut it out, put it on some Chocolate Chip card stock and then trimed the chocolate chip really close to the blossom. I glued the blossom on top of the already stamped complete flower and glued an off-white button on top.

I used "All in a Row to apply some Faux Stitching to the edges of the Flower piece before layering it with a slightly larger Chocolate Chip rectangle. I then put this on a larger Really Rust rectangle that had 3 corners rounded and the edges sponged with Chocolate Chip. I attached all of that onto the card and then put a thin strip of sponged Perfect Plum over the bottom portion. I used my little slot punch to create a hole in the seam of the card so that I could wrap some river rock ribbon around the card front over top of the plum strip. Finally I added my greeting which was stamped with Chocolate Chip on a sponged Very Vanilla circle layered with another Perfect Plum Circle and a Chocolate Chip Scallop Punch-out.

Sketch & Inspiration Challenge

This weekend I tried really hard to stay
off the computer and spend more time stamping. I actually got to stamp for a few hours on Saturday since it was a rainy day. I had printed out a few challenges from earlier in the week to keep me focused. This was last week's sketch challenge (SC141) and the picture of the girl dress below was the Inspiration Challenge from a week ago (IC92). The pale pinks, blues and browns were colors that I haven't used in a while together so it was a fun challenge. I also hadn't used my only "vintage" set, "Carte Postale," in a while so it was nice to dig that out too. Here's what I came up with:

Stamps: Carte Postale
Papers: Very Vanilla, Bashful Blue, Close to Cocoa, Pretty in Pink, Mellow Moss, Apple Cider DS Paper
Inks: Bashful Blue, Rose Romance, Close to Cocoa, Pretty in Pink, Mellow Moss
Accessories: Brass Hodge Podge, Flirty Ribbon (from last year's Winter Mini?), Corner Rounder Punch (for the scalloped edge)

More Taken with Pomegranate Artichokes

I had some scraps left over from when I made last week's color challenge (CC131), so I made a quick generic card with the leftovers. The butterflies are stamped on Naturals White in Rose Red, Tempting Turquoise and Always Artichoke. I used my small tag punch on those and then layered them with some Chocolate Chip tags that I cut with my larger tag punch. The teal cardstock was run through the Cuttlebug machine with a swirly embossing folder. I wrapped some Pomegranate Double stitched ribbon around the teal background and then attached the tags with adhesive and some brown brads. The edge of the Pomegranate card base was punched with my paper piercer for some faux stitching using my White gel pen.

September Calendar Page

Last week I made this page for my monthly calendar displaying pictures of my youngest daughter eating corn on the cob at a recent picnic. She was so proud of herself! These calendar pages are usually pretty quick and simple because I'm usually late in making them. I used bashful blue for the background an stamped flowers from "True Friend" in Bashful Blue ink all over it. I sponged Chocolate Chip ink all over the edges of the cardstock and stamped the paper edges with "All in a Row" for a faux stitched look (again!). The pictures are framed in Barely Banana and Wild Wasabi that have also been sponged with Chocolate Chip. The accent flower on the right is another flower from "True Friend". I inked the stamp with Barely Banana and then sponged Regal Rose on the outer edges of the rubber before stamping on White cardstock. I sponged the edges of the white cardstock with Chocolate Chip as well, before layering it with Chocolate Chip and sponged Wild Wasabi. I stamped the title with my "Best Friends Alphabet Upper" in Chocolate Chip and added a little Wasabi double stitched ribbon for embellishment.

Tough Color Challenge

I love the color challenges because they force me to go outside my confort zone. Otherwise I usually end up using the same colors over and over again. This week's was a doozy for me (CC131), I think because all the colors were so dark. So I struggled with this one for longer than I'd like to admit, and eventually decided to just do something simple. I'm still loving the faux stitching using "All in a Row" so I added that to liven it up a bit. It's been a while since I've used my Cuttlebug too, so I was excited to add some dimension to an otherwise plain card.

Here's the recipe:

Stamps: Polka Dots & Paisley, All in a Row
Paper: Taken with Teal, Purely Pomegranate, Natural White, Always Artichoke
Inks: Taken with Teal, Purely Pomegranate, Always Artichoke
Accessories: Pomegranate Double Stitched Ribbon, Dimensionals, Cuttlebug Embossing Folder

Click here to see the Splicoast Gallery for this challenge

Challenge Times Two

Here's my attempt at Beate's Fresh and Fun Weekend Sketch Challenge. I feel like this submission is very similar to one of her samples...I didn't deviate as much as I would have liked. I chose this color scheme from the Splitcoast Color Challenge CC129: Pretty Pink Pomegranates. The challenge was to use Old Olive, Pretty in Pink, and Purely Pomegranate.

Here's the recipe:

Stamps: True Friend

Inks: Chocolate Chip, Rose Red, Versamark

Papers: Purely Pomegranate, Rose Red Prints DS paper, Old Olive, Pretty in Pink, Chocolate Chip

Accessories: Pomegranate Double Stitched ribbon, Pink brads, circle punch, scallop punch, ticket corner punch

Note: I added some Versamark flowers on the patterned paper to just add a little extra (it's hard to see in the photo)

RAK from Beate

Beate Johns (one of my idols) sent me a sweet RAK a couple of days ago. I just love her work. This is actually an example for her weekend sketch challenge that's due this week. I hope to get a chance to enter!

You can find more details about this card on Beate's amazing blog: Fresh & Fun.

First Fall Card

I know it's not officially fall yet, but I'm starting to feel like using fall colors again. This is my first fall card of the season. Last week I got a new order from Stampin' Up! with some treats from the new Holiday Mini Collection. I treated myself to "True Friend" which is very different than an of the other stamp sets that I have and I got the Apple Cider Designer Series paper to coordinate. The cool thing is that all the Mini Catalog stamp sets are die cut which made assembling SO much faster! I'm hoping that this will eventually become standard for all of Stampin' Up!'s sets.

This card is inspired by Beate Johns' style of using the "All in a Row" set to add a stitched look to the edges of elements. This was a little tricky at first to get it lined up right on the edge, so it should get easier with more practice.

The card base is Natural Ivory. For the background I used Pumpkin Pie cardstock and stamped some "True Friend" flowers in Pumpkin Pie ink all over it. I sponged some chocolate chip ink along the outer edges of the background and then used "All in a Row" to stamp chocolate chip "stitching" along the edges.

I created the focal point by inking the flower (also from "True Friend") with Pumpkin Pie ink and then sponging some Chocolate Chip ink on the outer edges of the rubber before stamping it on Natural Ivory cardstock. I added some more stitching on the edges of this piece and then layered it on some Wild Wasabi cardstock with some sponged Chocolate Chip ink on the edges.

I layered this focal image on top of a piece of Apple Cider paper that I also had inked along the edges with Chocolate Chip. I tied a piece of River Rock double stitched ribbon around the patterned paper to give some dimensionality. Since this ribbon is so thick I found it best to adhere the patterened paper and the focal point to the card using dimensionals, which added even more dimensionality.

I added a simple greeting using my Rough Edges Mini Alphabet and Chocolate Chip ink. I'm finding that the small alphabets are perfect for creating your own greeting when you don't have a stamp that says what you want, or with a font that is appropriate for the card style.