Let's Roll

CPS224

This is my take on this week's wonderful sketch (CPS224) over at the Card Positioning Systems blog. This adorable VW Microbus image is from Wilson Designs Stamps new release:  Teeny Bikini, which is chock full of fun summery images.  I was going for a "flower power" look here.  I can't wait to use this set for more projects.  These images really fit the summer mode I'm in!

Here are my ingredients:

Cardstock~Daffodil Delight, Poppy Parade, Neenah Solar White, Cosmo Cricket Garden Variety DP.

Stamps~Wilson Designs Teeny Bikini.

Ink~Memento Tuxedo Black, VersaFine Onyx Black, Garden Green.

Accessories~Nestabilities, Copic markers, Dimensionals, Twinery Peapod twine.

LIM Vacation

For the Less Is More Week 21 challenge, Mandi and Chrissie have challenged the Limettes to a sketch:

I had lots of ideas for this one, but since I spent the day at the beach today with my boys, I chose to do a beachy theme with a new set I recently got from The Crafts Meow called It's a Shore Thing.  These designs are great for CAS creations - go over and take a look!  The service was great - it was a pleasure to do business with this company.

The images are stamped in Memento Tuxedo Black ink and colored with Copics.  The color scheme was inspired by last week's Colour Q challenge cQc90, which is now closed.  The colors were perfect for my idea.

The sentiment is from MFT's Catch Some Rays (Link to this set not available at the time of this posting). Perfect card for wishing family or friends a great vacation.  Thanks for stopping by today! I am off to check out the incredible Limette creations!

Twinkling Thank You

I have been so crazy busy since my kids got out of school - having lots of fun, but missing my ink time.  I finally got a little time to create today.  I combined this week's One Layer Wednesday and CAS-ual Fridays challenges for my creation.  I am so happy to be able to play both of these wonderful challenges this week.  I hate to miss them.

The awesome Girl Fridays over at the CAS-ual Fridays challenge blog have challenged us with CFC8  to use border punches, rip some cardstock, whatever your pleasure to add a fun edge to your Clean And Simple project!

 Susan Raihala's One Layer Wednesday challenge this week - OLW59 - is based on this photo. Susan of Simplicity by LateBlossom is an incredible artist.  Her work blows me away.  It is CAS at its finest, and I am always energized and inspired by her talent. 

This photo instantly put me in mind of Zinnias, an image from Impression Obsession that I have had for a while and never used.

I stamped the zinnias image on watercolor paper with Memento Tuxedo blank ink and then colored it with Twinkling H2O's.  They have such a beautiful sparkle that I can never really capture in my photos. I wanted to use Copics this time, but since they bleed paper a bit, H2O's were a better choice for my one layer card.  The bottom border was made with my new PTI Edgers 3 Collection border die, which I just love.  I finished my card off with a sentiment from Verve's Thankful Accents set  stamped in VersaFine Onyx Black ink.   I am happy with  the result of these combined challenges.  It is so good to have some time to focus on my art tonight.  Thanks so much for stopping in and taking a look!

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat???

Just a note to say that I posted a card tonight that I said was for One Layer Wednesday - but it is only Tuesday, and though I know I saw this inspiration somewhere, it was not OLW.  I am officially losing my mind.  I hope I can figure out which challenge was to use a flourish so I can submit my project. I am quite happy with it LOL.

Thanks With A Flourish

I work in a school library, and there is always a ton of work to do.  I have a helper mom who comes on Thursdays, our busiest day, to shelve books for me.  I am so grateful to her for all that she does.  Tomorrow is that last day of school, so I wanted to make her a card and give her a THANK YOU gift.  I got my inspiration from today's One Layer Wednesday Challenge which is to use a flourish in your project.  The beautiful SU set Baroque Motifs came immediately to my mind.  I then went to Color Throwdown #145 for my color inspiration.

I did not have Pear Pizazz ink, so I used some bling that is very close in color.  The sentiment is from PTI's  Blooming Button Bits.  I sponged around the edges with Ranger Antique Linen Distress Ink.  I love the way this turned out. Simple and poignant.

Thanks so much for stopping by. Have a lovely day!

CAS-ual Thinking Of You

This card is for this week's CAS-ual Fridays challenge.  This project frustrated me beyond words.  I began it last week, intending it to be my submission for the June 3rd CAS-ual Fridays challenge.  That challenge was a sketch challenge - you can see it below.

I had just recently received my PTI Anniversary set, and there was an enclosure that I really loved, and I planned to use it for my inspiration. See below:

WELL!!!!! I made it about what felt like 1,000 times, and I just could not get it right.  I missed the deadline for last week's challenge, but I was bound and determined to make it work somehow and use it again.  I finally found a way to work it that I like, and I tweaked my original idea so that I could use it for this week's CAS-ual Fridays challenge, which is so cool.

This week the girls Friday challenge us to This week at CAS-ual Fridays, we are playing Tic Tac Toe.

Each 3-in-a-row line holds a recipe and you get to choose the row that works for you. Choose a row: across, down, or diagonal and then Create a Clean & Simple design using those elements in your project.   I chose the middle, vertical row: GEMS, DIES OR PUNCH, FLOWERS. 

Here is my recipe:
Paper~ Black, River Rock.
Stamps~SU Sanded, MFT 2010 Anniversary set.
Ink~SU Craft White and Crumb Cake , Ranger Rusty Hinge and Forest Moss distress inks, VersaFine Onyx Black
Accessories~Black Gel Pen, SU distressing tool, Twinery Manderine twine, MFT Die-namics banner strip die, Kaiser self-adhesive half pearls, Tombo Multi liquid glue.

I am so done with this card!!!!!!  I am sorry to have edited this post twice, but I found some errors that I just had to fix! Thanks for stopping in to look at my frustrating piece!!!! Have a great day!

Framed Father's Day

This week's Less Is More challenge #19 is a ONE LAYER WEEK again.  The challenge is entitled "IN THE FRAME.  Chrissie and Mandi would like to see a frame of some sort or something in a frame... They'd like you to be as inventive as you like.  You could doodle, draw, emboss, ink, paint, colour, print, stamp, emboss resist, mask or any other method you can come up with to get a frame of sorts into your design.

Well today, I went to my local scrapbook store to get some ink, and of course, I did not stop there.  I saw two stamps I had to have.  I used one of them for my LIM project. It is called Boat Cupcake from Impression Obsession, Inc. I saw some amazing cards lately with embossed frames using Nestabilities, and I wanted to try that technique.  As usual, the LIM challenge made me try something new. Gotta love that!  I combined my new stamp with the embossed frame technique for my take on this week's LIM challenge.  I used Gina K's tutorial that you can view HERE.

I used watercolor paper as my base, stamped my image with Memento Tuxedo Black ink, and colored it with a combination of Twinkling H2O's, SU Watercolor Crayons and Watercolor Pencils.  I framed the image by embossing with Nestabilities Labels Eleven.  I did the sky with SU Bashful Blue ink and the Inkessentials blending tool.  I then stamped the sentiment from Hero Arts Clear Design June with VersaFine Onyx Black ink.

I need a Father's Day card for my DH, so this is perfect.  He is a beach guy... He will love it!  Thanks for stopping by to visit!

Monochromatic Thank You

The goodness of this week continues... I had placed an order from PTI and was anxiously awaiting it's delivery.  When it came the other day, enclosed was my PTI 2010 Anniversary set - Botanical Silhouettes. It is a is a FREE Limited Edition stamp set circulated to loyal customers who purchased 12 qualifying stamp sets between February 2010 and February 2011. It is GORGEOUS!!!!!!!!!!  I LOVE PTI products and service and I think it is wonderful that they have this program.

So yesterday when I went over to the Less Is More blog to see what wonderful inspiration was in store for me this week.  When I saw the challenge, I immediately knew what I would do.  The LIM divas are now back to a colour challenge and for this week they have decided to do MONOCHROME - Use shades of one color: using or displaying only shades of one color or black and white. You may choose any colour you wish, but keep all the shades you use within your chosen spectrum.

I LOVE this.  I have never done this before!!  One of the many things I LOVE about the LIM challenges is that they encourage me do things I have never done before.  It's fabulous!!  So I made 2 monochromatic cards using my new PTI set.  I am so pleased with the way they came out.  On the pink one, I put clear stickles in the flower centers. You really can's see that on the picture.

 
On the blue one, I used my clear atyou spica glitter pen to give the flowers a little sparkle.  You can't see that on this picture either. 

All of the inks I used are from Stampin' Up except for the sentiment, which is VersaFine Onyx Black.  I really enjoyed this and I can now add another style to my repertoire.  Thanks LIM divas!  Now I am going to hop on over to see what fabby creations the LIMettes have whipped up!  Thanks for stopping by!

What a week!

Good Sunday morning!

I have never written a blog post without posting a project, but I guess there is a first time for everything! This has been a wonderful week for me in many ways, and especially in terms of my crafting.  Ever since I can remember, I have always had a "craft du jour" - macrame, sewing, quilting, stenciling... About 8 or 9 years ago, I met my dear friend Carol at a street fair.  My twin boys were very little then, and I wanted to start making memory books for them.  I had no idea where to begin.  Carol was (and is) a Creative Memories Consultant, her CM website is HERE, and she got me started in the wonderful world of paper crafting through scrapbooking.  A precious friendship was born.  A few years later, we both went to a Stampin' Up stamp camp, we I got hooked on the art of stamping, card making... paper crafting.

I posted my first blog entry on this blog on October 5, 2008.  Since then, I have been developing my craft as time allows.  I began to participate in challenges, which is THE way to get good.  Well, this week, for the first time, I won a challenge.  I also received honorable mention for another, and was given awards from 2 wonderful and talented crafters!!!!!!!  I won the Summertime, and the Living Is Easy challenge over at Betty Bee's Buzz for THIS project!  Woo Hoo!!!!! I also received honorable mention for THIS entry in the Play Date Cafe PDCC83 Color Splash challenge. WOW!!  Woo Hoo!! Yippee!!

This week, I received this lovely award from Scrappin Rabbit Designs and from June Houck. Thank you so much for this honor!!

With this award, you have to share 5 things about yourself and one has to be about your crafting.
1 - I stated above that I have always had a "craft du jour".  Well, I can't see myself ever moving on from this particular craft.
2 - I love libraries!
3 - My favorite place to be is by the sea.
4 - I love Thai food.
5 - I love to sing and play guitar, and back in the day, I performed in bands and was a rock star in my dreams.  I guess that one is still true - LOL!

I am passing this award on to:

Lucian - Lucian is the person who inspired me so greatly when I began creating with stamps and paper.  She is a good friend and an amazing artist.
Jenny - Jenny is a crafter Ii have met recently through some new challenge blogs.  She is a great artist and a source of inspiration.
Shirley - Shirley is another amazing artist who has been so kind, encouraging and inspiring to me.
Susan - Susan recently posted a tutorial on how she photographs her work.  This has helped me so much, and I am grateful.  Her work is amazing and inspiring to me.

Holy smoke!!!  I am so happy about all of this, and so honored.  I have met some wonderful people in this blog world.  Some of the blogs that I have recently begun participating in their challenges, have really caused a surprising increase in blog views for me.  They are Less is More, CAS-ual Fridays, and the Play Date Cafe.  The DT and participants of these challenges are exceptionally supportive in terms of commenting, and as we all know,  lovely comments = happiness!!!  It is so much fun to see crafters' takes on challenges, and to exchange encouraging words with people from all over the globe.  I love the sense of humor that comes out and ideas shared. 

Thanks to all for your kindnesses and encouragement.  I am pleased and proud to be part of this community!

Stephanie