Celebrate Summer

This week's theme for the HoneyBee Showcase over at Betty Bee's Buzz Blog is "It's summertime and the living is easy". I love summer at the beach. I live close enough that I can go to the beach any day I want.  I work in my kids' school and I have summers off.  Fabulous! The countdown is on. We get out June 15th.  Most of my best summer memories involve the shore (as we say in NJ when we speak of the beach). I have been mulling this project over for days. I had a panel that I had embossed some time ago with Spellbinders Seascape Impressabilities on SU Blush Blossom card stock. I knew I would use that as my background. I have had so much inspiration lately from so many fellow crafters... My friend June Houck made something fabulous recently using cork (HERE) , so I was inspired to pull that out and use it as "sand". I just got this new MFT Die-Namics Catch a Wave and used it for my for water... The seahorse is from this wonderful stamp from Outlines Rubber Stamp Company Split Layer Collage - Splash. I CASE'd the colors on the seahorse from THIS post. My friend Shirley inspired me to color it with Twinkling H2O's. I usually use Copics, but Shirley's post about Twinkling H2O's (HERE) being alive and well, inspired me to color my image with them. They are so shiney and sparkeley - I love them. I thought the addition of the rope made the whole thing look nautical. I used a white Gel pen to make the dots on the seahorse stand out.  I really fussed with the colors for the base and the first layer, but I am happy with the final product. I love that this project made me go to places I have not been.  Thank you for coming by and thank you always for your feedback!

CAS Graduation

There are a few very special 8th graders in the school in which I work, who are about to graduate and for whom I wanted to make special cards.  Our school colors are green and white.  I came up with this creation with inspiration from three challenges this week: 
The theme of graduation is inspired by this week's CAS-ual Fridays Girl Fridays CFC4 - This one is for the Grads!
The layout is inspired by this week's Clean & Simple sketch - FTL142.  I loved the idea taken from Nancy's card for this layout and Natasha's card which is just below the layout HERE, of embossing 3/4 of the card and then adding 2 scor lines to the right of the embossing.  Great idea - looks fabulous.  Thank you Nancy and Natasha!
The color scheme is taken from this week's Play Date Cafe Color Splash Challenge PDCC83 : Black & White with a SPLASH of green.

Here are my ingredients:
Stamps ~ PTI For the Graduate, Just Rite 15 pt alphabet.
Paper ~ Gina K's Pure Luxury Black, PTI White.
Ink - SU Garden Green, Memento Tuxedo Black.
Accessories ~ Provocraft EF, Scor-It, 5/8 Stitched grosgrain ribbon, star button, The Twinery's Peapod twine, Scor-Tape, Just Rite 1 1/2" circular stamper.

I loved the idea that I came up with last year of using my Just Rite circular stamp and alphabet/numbers to stamp "SMS Class of 20??" in the circle with the hat and stars.  It's a nice touch and the kids love it.
Thank you so much for stopping in today.  I hope you had a great weekend!

Relax and Enjoy

I don't usually combine lots of challenges, but there is something in the air out there in challenge blogland -SUMMER!  Summer officially opened for me yesterday.  The criteria for the first day of summer in our family is not a date.  The first day of summer consists of going "down the shore" (New Jersey speak for "to the beach") and stay there for at least 4 hours, and in addition you have to go to Strollo's Lighthouse for Italian ice - Lighthouse Italian Ice is the "taste of the Jersey Shore" and for diehard fans like me and mine, it's the taste of summer itself.  Yesterday, my boys had a half day at school.  We packed the car in the morning, and left right from there and headed down the shore.  We had Italian ice for dinner, and pizza for dessert.  It was a perfect first day of summer.

There are three challenges out there on the challenge blogs I frequently visit, for which this card is perfect:
Less Is More has a really fun and creative challenge this week.  It was the inspiration for my design. 
It is:

PICK A SQUARE

For their "Pick a Square" challenge, Chrissie and Mandi offer us a multiple choice.... well sort of ... you can choose which of the 5 SQUARES from their plan that you wish to use to place the image of your card, leaving the rest as PURE WHITE SPACE! Isn't that so fun and clever? I just love it!

The C4C challenge this week - C4C89 - is to create a project that features your favorite vacation spot or activity.  Well, my favorite spot is the beach, and my favorite activity is relaxing in my beach chair! Voila!

The Stamp Something challenge last week was to use beachy colors, and this week, it is to use a sentiment.  I did not get time to play last week, so with the beach in mind, this card combines the two.

The image I used is from Outlines Rubber Stamp Company's Split Layering Collage Collection - Seaside. I colored it with Copics and mounted it on 2 layers of square Nesties.  The sentiment is from MFT's Catch Some Rays.  I could not find it on their website to link it at this time.

Thank you for coming by.  I hope you have a safe and happy Memorial Day weekend!

Discover Your Wings

I took my inspiration for this card from this week's Less Is more challenge, which is to use a butterfly or butterflies in your creation.  I embossed the frame on Gina K's Pure Luxury White cardstock. This Provocraft EF is made for CAS creations!  The butterfly from Taylored Expressions Discover Your Wings collection is heat embossed with gold embossing powder on a sheet of BasicGrey Wisteria DP then cut out and mounted on the card with 2 mini glue dots.  The sentiment is stamped with VersaFine Onyx Black ink.  I thought about adding a line of tiny purple rhinestones beneath the word "wings", but I resisted the temptation and left it very clean and very simple. I like it a lot!

Thank you for coming by today!

Leave a Trail

I recently found Betty Bee's Buzz - a wonderful blog that has all kinds of things - projects, challenges, instructions and sharing...  Every Monday at Betty Bee's Buzz, one of the Honeybees shares a special project with you on the Monday Motivational. Last week, the incredibly talented Amy Sheffer of Pickled Paper Designs was guest Honey Bee for Monday Motivational.  Amy shared a great challenge that I got very excited about - a wedding theme for your not-necessarily wedding themed project: something OLD, something NEW, something BORROWED, and something BLUE.  What a brilliant idea!!

I have to laugh at myself about the process of making this card.  Lately I have been trying hard to discipline myself to create more in the CAS style.  For this one though, I intended to go for lots of layers and DP. It had much more going on when I first started.  I started with three panels of DP matted on black.  I changed the paper and the colors and the layout a million times... I fussed and I fussed... and then something wonderful happened!  I decided to simplify it and I stopped struggling.  I do love the layers and embellishments so much, but I labor so long and hard and I just don't have much time.  This card took me hours and hours by the time I built it up and broke it down, but I am happy with it in the end.  What a nut I am.    

This is a graduation card for my friend who just finished her Masters of Education degree.  I wanted to do something different, and I thought this image and sentiment from MFT's Enjoy the Ride, which is in their June 2011 VIP Package, was perfect for this occasion.  In the end, the only DP I used was to paper piece WTG's clothing.  I colored the rest of her and her bicycle with Copics.  You can't really see it in my photo, but I colored the handlebars and two other parts on the bicycle with my silver Zig Painty pen to make it look "chrome-y".  I love that touch!  The yellow panel is dry embossed with a polka dot impressions plate from SU - also hard to see in the photo. 

My something OLD is retired Barely Banana card stock from SU.  My something NEW is my new MFT Enjoy the Ride set.  Something BORROWED is the technique I've seen many times but seldom used, of stamping a sentiment twice, highlighting a word or words with color, cutting them out and popping them up on top of the sentiment already stamped.  My something BLUE is this WTG's paper pieced pants.  To tell the truth, there was a lot more blue when I was playing with panels and background colors, but they went away in my process of simplification!  I do love those pants though - I have a pair just like them!

Anyway, I really enjoyed this, and am so glad I finally got to play one of these challenges.  I plan to do more.  If you haven't yet, please go on over and check out Betty Bee's Buzz.  You will love it!  

HB2U

This is my CAS-ual Fridays creation for this week.  The challenge is to use bling on your Clean and Simple project.  I love this challenge blog, and I am learning so much about the CAS style.  The challenges here really get me thinking in a whole new way, and the participants are so talented and gracious.

This creation is about as far from my usual as I could possibly get. I love that!  When I saw the challenge on Fruday, I went through my stash in my head thinking about what blingy things I had to work with.  I immediately thought of MFT's Bling Bet - a set I have had for a long time but never used.  Then I thought of SU's red glitter paper and my new By the Number dies from PTI.  Put 'em together with some Kaiser self adhesive rhinestones and whaddaya got?? Blingy HB2U!  I have not looked at this week's CAS-ual Friday entries yet. I am on my way over to post this and to be wowed by all of the amazing creations I know I will find there.  If you have not gone yet, go on over and play.  Have a wonderful Sunday! 

Baby Cakes

This week's One Layer Wednesday Challenge (OLW54) is to make a one-layer baby card using this post of Sunday Sweets as your inspiration.  There are some amazing cakes to choose from - most of which left me thinking "how'd they do that"???  I chose this cake as my inspiration:

PTI's A Little Argyle came to mind right away and SU's Nursery Necessities is my go-to baby set.  I decided to make a little window and place that adorable little bird inside so it is there when you open the card.  I hope my Nestie frame around the circle does not count as a layer on my one layer card... I have always been one to push the envelope, and it really did not look right without the frame.  I added some glaze and sparkle to the little bird with a gel pen. Voila! One layer (and a frame) baby card!

Here is my recipe:

Paper ~ Taylored Expressions Buttercream.

Stamps ~ PTI A Little Argyle, SU Nursery Necessities.

Ink ~ Soft Suede, Pretty in Pink, Rose Red.

Accessories ~ Sakura Gelly Roll glaze pen, SU Pretty In Pink 3/8" taffeta ribbon, Nestabilities, Scor-It-All, glue dot.