Hope, Friends, Love

Oh I have missed playing challenges while I was away.  This creation is a combination of two challenges -  Less is More which is a recipe challenge - Ribbon(s) or Button(s)  and Play Date Cafe which is a color inspiration : Coral, Petal Pink and Antique Gold. I love the beauty of these colors together.

My dear friend lost her mother this morning, and I wanted to make her a very special card.  This simple card took me many tries, but I am satisfied with it in the end.  The image and sentiment are from PTI's With Sympathy.  I used PTI's Half & Half with matching Die for the background and the die cut piece that holds the sentiment.  The ribbon is from a long retired assortment from SU.  I added a butterfly with 2 tiny pearls above the sentiment.  It feels so good to rev up my inner LIMette and to play the Play Date Cafe challenge again.  Thanks so much for stopping by! 

Life Is Good

I've been away for a while, and though I had a wonderful vacation with my family, I have missed my craft room.  I am so happy to have a little time to create today.  I made this card for this week's CAS-ual Fridays challenge : CFC13-The Long and Short of it: Create a 4 x 9 card and keep it Clean And Simple!  I just love Teeny Bikini from Wilson Designs and It's a Shore Thing from the craft's meow for fun summer-themed creating.  Last week's Color Throwdown 151 challenge was to use rainbow colors - ROYGBIV.  I missed the deadline for that, but in thinking about what I would do if I could, I got the idea to line up these adorable polka dot surfboards in rainbow colors.  When I saw the CAS-ual Fridays challenge today, this design popped into my head and I went with it.  I masked and sponged the Soft Sky background.  I also masked each surf board so that I could overlap each one with the next.  The surfboards and the waves are hand cut.  The sun is cut with Nestabilities.  The tops of the surf boards are popped with Dimensionals.  I love this happy creation.  It feels so good to be back.  Thanks so much for stopping in today!

Happy 4th of July

Today is the 4th of July - Independence Day - the national day of the United States.  Independence Day is commonly associated with fireworks, parades, barbecues, carnivals, fairs, picnics, concerts, baseball games, political speeches and ceremonies, and various other public and private events celebrating the history, government, and traditions of the United States.  Canada Day was July 1. Canada Day also means fireworks and the year's biggest national party.  Lots of patriotic celebrating out there!

Yesterday, I was pondering what my Less Is More challenge creation might be for this week.  While looking through blogs posting some comments, I saw THIS creation  by Isha of New Ideas.  Isha was one of the winners of the CAS-ual Fridays CFC8 challenge last week.  Her creation was so striking to me.  I had it in my mind when I saw this week's Less Is More challenge #22, which is to use shades of blue in your CAS creation.  Then I ran across a blog that is new to me - Stampin Royalty.  Their challenge #78 this week is a theme challenge to Go Patriotic. 

With these two challenges in mind, and my admiration for Isha's creation,  I came up with a CASE of Isha's card with several shades of blue and a patriotic theme.  I used MFT's Die-namics Star Border to cut star borders in six shades of blue - Night of Navy, Marina Mist, Bashful Blue, Baja Breeze, Pacific Point and Tempting Turquoise.  I ran them through my Xyron to apply adhesive to the backs.  I made french knots on the left-most star of each border with The Twinery's Maraschino Twine.  The sentiment and large star are from Verve's American Hero collection.  The large star is colored with Copics and accented with a gold atyou Spica glitter pen.  The white panel is mounted on Night of Navy and Cherry Cobbler.  I am thankful to Isha for her inspiration, and so glad I found another fabulous blog to play with.

Have a wonderful day, and thanks for stopping in!

Kraft-man Congrats

This week's Girl Fridays over at the CAS-ual Fridays Challenge blog have a fun challenge for us -

Krafts-men: create a Clean And Simple masculine project using kraft.

 

I enjoy the CAS-ual Fridays challenges so much, and the DT and participants are wonderful.  Lots of luscious comments are exchanged, and that is so encouraging and supportive.  If you have not, please go on over to visit and play.  Lots of amazing talent there.

 

This project is so very simple.  I tried adding a little ribbon, a corner piece, some twine, some buttons or brads, but it really stands so well on its own so I left it alone.  I am learning...  The music is from Waltzingmouse Stamps Musical Backgrounds collection embossed with VersaMark and white embossing powder.  The guitar is from PTI's Rythm & Soul.  It is stamped in Memento Tuxedo black ink, colored with Copics, cut out and adhered with 3D foam squares.  You can't see it in the picture, but I used my gold Zig Painty pen to give a shiny brass look to the tuning heads on the guitar.  I love little details like that. 

 

I am off to link this up and check out the other CAS-ual Fridays creations.  Have a wonderful day!

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!