Sending HUGS

I was so excited to find out that I was among the papercrafters invited to join the Catered Crop Top Chef designers in this coming Sunday's Quickfire.  What an honor!!  The latest challenge is SEEING RED ~ use RED in your creation.  So, here it is - my RED creation. This is more complex and layer-y than my creations of late, but I really like the way it turned out.  Thanks so much for stopping in today!

Stitched Thank You

 I took the inspiration for my card today from two challenges:

 Moxie Fab World Tuesday Trigger : Chiclectic

AND

 CFC40: With Mardi Gras in a few days the Gal Fridays thought it would be fun to have a gallery full of Clean And Simple Party cards with ribbon. 

It took me forever to finish making this card. I tried a gazillion things every which way.  I do like the way it FINALLY came together though.  When I saw the Moxie Fab World Tuesday Trigger inspiration photo, the colors put me in mind of these polka dot grosgrain ribbons from my SU stash.  The ribbons went along with the CAS-ual Fridays challenge.  Cath Edvalson of Moxie Fab World gave PTI a big shout out in THIS post, so I thought it only fitting to use PTI products to complete my card.  This is not hard to do - I have a serious PTI addiction and I am well stocked with PTI product.  I used PTI's Leafy Vine border die cut to edge the left side of my center "stitched" panel, which is stamped with images from PTI's Stitches and Swirls collection.  The sentiment is from PTI's Think Big Favorites #2 set.  Thanks for your visit today!

A Hundred Hearts

Happy Valentines Day - a little early!  This card is for my mom - my first Valentine.  She is 89 years old.  All of my life, she made every holiday special with little things that meant so much.  Every Valentines day, my sisters and I would come home from school, and when we got home there would be a heart shaped double layered crown cake with pink, seven minute frosting, coconut flakes on top and bitter chocolate dripping down the sides. Amazing!!!!  I love to do special little things for my boys on Valentines day with her love in my mind and heart.

My layout is inspired by Clean and Simple FTL177.  Here is the sketch:

I was also inspired by the current Catered Crop recipe, which is to use HEARTS on your project. Here is the photo from the heart mosaic on the Catered Crop blog that inspired my card:

 

The heart image I used to stamp the multi-color hearts and the sentiment is from Verve's Hundred Hearts.  The newsprint DP is from a retired SU paper pack.

 

 Thanks for stopping in today. Have a happy day.

be mine - stripes and circles

This week Mandi & Chrissie of Less Is More have challenged us to a one layer creation with stripes.  This week's One Layer Wednesday challenge is to use more than 5 circles on your creation.  I thought and thought about making something with both challenges in mind.

I decided to go for stripes of circles.  I used many shades of pink inks and various circle images on masked spaces in stripes.  The little stripe of hearts on the bottom is stamped in Real Red.  I like the result, but I have to say that I wish the "b" in "be mine" was either a little more to the left or to the right.  I don't have the inclination to do it again, and since this is a one layer card, there are not a lot of options to fix it!  The sentiment and hearts are from Verve, the rest of the stamps I used are PTI.

I peeked at the creations so far in the LIM gallery.  What clever creations as always!  I love to see all of the different ways challenges are interpreted.  I am heading over to check out more postings, then over to the OLW gallery.  Thank you for stopping in on this snowy night (here in northeastern US).

Aqua Thoughts

For the first anniversary of the "Less Is More" challenge blog, Mandi & Chrissie are back to a repeat of their inaugural challenge which for the first Saturday of the month is colour... and this time they have chosen

AQUA

 

I was trying to channel my inner Chrissie here.  I love the way she uses inks and the gorgeous affects she creates.  They make me swoon.  I would like to go to inking camp.  Is there such a thing? I am sure there is.

 

I am very curious about the ink duster brush that Chrissie mentioned using on her ink panel in her challenge post this week.  I read a bit about their use, and came up with a plan to improvise because I don't have one.  I masked the rectangle on the front of my card, and applied Ranger Tumbled Glass distress ink with blending tool.  I then put a drop of PTI Hawaiian Shores refill ink on my Tim Holtz Teflon matt, loaded a stenciling brush from my "stenciling phase" LOL, and stippled over the blended ink.  I embossed this gorgeous Memory Box image, Drift Flowers, with white EP, then stamped the image again in Tumbled Glass ink next to the embossed image.  I wanted to see how it would work to emboss on top of the aqua panel rather than emboss first.  Some of the powder stuck to the blue panel.  I like that with this particular image.  The sentiment is from PTI's Botanical Silhouettes collection.  To finish, I added a little Dazzling Diamonds to the flower to give it a little sparkle. 

 

Voila!  A new year of LIM challenges begins!  I love being a part of this community.  Thank you again Mandi & Chrissie for creating this wonderful place...

and thank you for stopping and for your wonderful comments.  Be well.