Cards, Challenges, and more!

Thanks to my amazing husband, I actually got some time yesterday to sit down and make a bunch of cards. The only minor distraction that I had was my youngest daughter sitting on my lap while I worked for some of the time. She was very well behaved, so I didn't mind at all! I had taken notes about a few challenges that I could use to get me started and I'm so happy that I was able to satisfy many of them!

The first card satisfies 2 challenges- yeah! The layout is using Beate's Weekend Sketch Challenge (WSC41) and the colors are from a Splitcoast Color Challenge (CC159): Whisper Soft Gray.

What I like about this card is the focal image which I coated with Irridescent Ice (hard to see in the picture). The image sparkles so much in real life that as I was finishing the card, I realized that I wanted to keep the card fairly simple so as not to detract from the sparkly flower.

Stamps: One of a Kind
Papers: Soft Sky, Basic Gray, Whisper White
Inks: Tempting Turquoise, Basic Gray, Versamark
Accessories: Love & happiness Rub-ons, Basic Gray Taffeta Ribbon, Irridescent Ice
Notes: To make the flower sparkle, I covered the flower with versamark ink by wiping it on the pad. I then added the Irridescent Ice and heat embossed. To color the flower in I used tempting turquoise ink and a blender pen to get a Soft Sky shade....still haven't bought the pad!

The next card was for color challenge CC158: Krafty Orchid Shadows. I just received my "She's All That" stamp set and I couldn't wait to use it!

Stamps: She's All That
Papers: Kraft, Chocolate Chip, Sage Shadow, Very Vanilla,Orchid Opulence
Inks: Chocolate Chip
Accessories: Ticket Corner Punch, Cuttlebug Embossing Folder, Scallop & Circle Punches, Orchid ribbon, Chocolate Chip Twill Ribbon

The last card here was another using the One of a Kind stamp set. I was trying to use the Weekend Sketch Challenge for this one, but just couldn't make it work. So here's what I ended up with...a little more simple than I had envisioned, but still nice.

Stamps: One of a Kind
Papers: Chocolate Chip, Whisper White, Rose Red, Berry Bliss DS paper
Inks: Chocolate Chip, Pretty in Pink, Rose Red
Accessories: Pink brads, Chocolate Chip wide grosgrain ribbon, Pretty in Pink Taffeta Ribbon, Ticket Corner Punch, Brown Button

I actually made 3 more cards yesterday, but they're for my Technique class so I won't be able to upload those until after the class next week. Stay tuned!

March Scrapbook Layouts

Here are the pages we made last night at my monthly scrapbooking class. The layout above uses the page elements that we created in the class. I was so excited to make a page for spring!

Stamps: Fabulous Flowers, Big Deal Alphabet, Best Friends Upper
Inks: Summer Sun, Rose Red, Pumpkin Pie
Papers: Rose Red, Summper Sun, Pumpkin Pie, White
Accessories: Flower Slide from Styled Silver HodgePodge set, Pumpkin grosgrain ribbon, Flower Fusion felt flowers, Orange Rhinestone brad

This next layout was a "boy" themed page using those fun animals from Zoofari again. I used my Cuttlebug to add some dimension in the orange pieces.

Stamps: Zoofari, Best Friends Alpha Upper, Big Deal Alpha

Inks: Glorious Green, Ballet Blue, Chocolate Chip, Only Orange

Papers: Pumpkin Pie, Glorious Green, Ballet Blue, Chocolate Chip, Bashful Blue

Accessories: Chocolate Chip Twill Ribbon, Cuttlebug Embossing folder, Creamy Caramel watercolor wonder crayon, blender pen

Notes: To color in the monkeys stamped on the blue cardstock I used a blender pen with a caramel watercolor crayon.

A lot of my friends still have some Christmas pictures to scrapbook so they requested another Christmas layout. Fortunately, I hadn't yet scrapbooked the pictures of my Mia on Christmas Eve posing in ther Christmas dress. I used the colors in her dress as inspiration for the layout.

Stamps: Season of Joy, Typeset Alphabet lower

Inks: Real Red, Basic Black

Papers: Cerise DS, Real Red, Very Vanilla, Basic Black

Accessories: Real Red grosgrain ribbon, Black Wide organdy ribbon, Red Rhinestone Brads, Cuttlebug embossing folder

Notes: I dry embossed the background black paper of the title block using a swirly Cuttlebug dry embossing folder.

February Scrapbook Layouts

Here are the scrapbook layouts that I designed for my monthly scrapbooking class last month. This first one is a winter themed page that I used to display some sledding pictures of my kids.

Stamps: The Snowflake Spot, Big Deal Alphabet, Best Friends Alphabet Lower
Papers: Close to Cocoa, Pretty in Pink, Purely Pomegranate, Berry Bliss DS
Inks: Close to Cocoa, Rose Red
Accessories: Brown buttons, Purely Pomegranate Double stitched ribbon, white gel pen, square punch, pink brads.
Notes: I used the "direct to paper" technique to darken up the edges of the 12x12 pages before stamping snowflakes on the corners.

The next layout was designed to be used for a "year in review" series of photos.

Stamps: Priceless, Best Friends Alphabet lower, Big Deal Alphabet
Papers: Certainly Celery, Old Olive, Soft Sky, Elegant Eggplant, Fall Flowers DS
Inks: Old Olive, Elegant Eggplant
Accessories: Flowers and half pearls from the Pretties Kit, Soft Sky Double stitched ribbon, Photo Corner punch, Corner Rounder

This next layout was made using the "page elements" that we created with a boyish/animal theme. Stamps: Zoofari, Best Friends Alphabet lower, Big Deal Alpha

Papers: Old Olive, Soft Sky, White, Certianly Celery, Sahara Sand, Fall Flowers.

Inks: Old Olive, Sahara Sand, Certainly Celery, Basic Gray, Not Quite Navy

Accessories: Photo corner punch, Celery Ribbon, Soft Sky Double stitched ribbon, Vintage Pewter brads, Cutter Kit

Notes: I used the cutter kit to roughen up the edges of the cardstock (as shown on the right). Since I don't have the soft sky ink pad, I used a blender pen and the Not Quite Navy pad to color the birds a similar shade of blue.

March Technique Class: "Powdery" techniques

This month we explored a few "Powdery" techniques including: using glitter, Painted Pearls, and the Chalkboard technique. This first card is an example of using glitter, though the picture doesn't show it too well. The club members wanted to make something for Easter, so this is what I came up with. I don't really have a lot of Easter stamps, so the flexible Loads of Love set was perfect!!! This card also uses 2 new accessories: the chocolate chip twill ribbon and the flower ribbon slide from the new Styled Silver Hodge Podge Hardware kit.


When applying glitter, I find the two-way glue pen to work nicely. Just apply it to wherever you need some sparkle and then pour some glitter on it. Shake of the excess glitter and you're done! So quick and easy!
Stamps: Loads of Love, Loads of Love Accessories, Aida Cloth
Inks: Chocolate Chip, Close to Cocoa, So Saffron, Certainly Celery, Rose Red
Papers: Cutie Pie DS Paper, Certainly Celery, Chocolate Chip, White, Rose Red
Accessories: Styled Silver Hodge Podge Flower Ribbon Slide, Chocolate Chip Twill ribbon, two-way glue, Dazzling Diamonds.


This next card uses the painted pearls technique. When Stampin' Up! decided to not sell Pearl Ex any more I was SO disappointed, because I had just discovered this technique. The girls in my technique club wanted to learn the technique, so I resurrected my jars of Pearl-Ex and aquapainter. The basics of this technique is to use Future Floor wax in an Aqua Painter as a paint brush to apply Pearl-Ex. When you dip the Aquapainter in the jar of Pearl-Ex and then apply it to your paper, the floor wax and Pearl-Ex mix to make a sparkly, pearly paint.

Stamps: Embrace Life, Warm Words
Inks: Pink Passion, Basic Gray
Papers: Pixie Pink, Basic Gray, Pink Passion, White
Accessories: Pewter brads, Basic Gray Taffeta ribbon, Ticket corner punch


The next card demonstrates the Chalkboard technique, which is essentially the same as Poppin' Pastels with the only difference being the use of white craft ink instead of Versamark ink. Just stamp a dark colored cardstock with white ink and then apply pastel chalks with sponges or daubers.

Stamps: Fabulous Flowers, All in a Row
Inks: Real Red, Craft White, Chocolate Chip
Papers: Real Red, Summer Sun, Chocolate Chip
Accessories: Stampin' Pastels, Photo Corner Punch, Antique Brass Brads

Beate's Inspiration Challenge - Textured Cutting Board

I'm sorry I've been so quiet lately...it's been hard for me to find time to be creative lately. But I'm so happy that I was able to steal away a few minutes this morning to create a card using Beate's inspiration challenge. This week's challenge was to create something inspired by this textured cutting board. I also wanted to play with the "Love & Happiness" rub-ons that I recently received as part of Sale-a-bration. So for this card I used NO STAMPS!

I must say when it comes to rub-ons, I'm not a big fan. I haven't used them much, but the few that I have used have been really difficult to apply, requiring way too much "rubbing." So I was very pleasantly surprised with Stampin' Up's rub-ons since they required very little effort to apply and left high quality images that looked like they were printed on the paper. So, needless to say, I'm very excited to see all the cards that I can make with my new rub-ons since the package came with so many in 4 different colors!

Stamps: NONE!

Papers: Soft Sky, Chocolate Chip, River Rock, Rose Red

Inks: NONE!

Accessories: Love & Happiness Rubons, Cuttlebug embossing folder, Light blue rhineston brads, chocolate chip twill ribbon, soft sky double stitched ribbon, corner rounder.