First Day of Fall

What a gorgeous day we have here in Missouri, perfect for ushering in the fall season!  Even though it is just fall, it is not too early for Christmas cards and the Merry Monday Challenge and OWH provided just the right inspiration today. 

I admired this stamp all last year and finally broke down and got it.  It is from Verve's Glad Tidings set.  The image is stamped on Naturals White cs with Stazon black and watercolored with Gumball Green and Real Red Stampin' Up ink and aquapainter.  The image was mounted Naturals White and Gumball Green cs that has been scored with the Simply Scored tool.  The card base is Lucky Limeade.  The main image and sentiment are popped up on dimensionals.  

Thank You so much for visiting my blog.  Your comments are greatly appreciated!

Quick CASE

I made a quick card this morning for OWH's sketch this week.  Also, at SCS the Featured Stamper Challenge is to CASE ourselves.  So, I CASed a card I made yesterday, using this OWH sketch-

I turned the sketch and made this card-

I really like how this turned out and I am loving the combination of River Rock and black.  I used the Stampin' Up stripes embossing on the lower portion of the card, scored two lines with the Simply Scored tool dividing the upper and lower portion of the card, cut the frame and the sentiment panel with a spellbinder and stamped the sentiment with a retired Stampin' Up set, All Year Cheer. 

Well, I am off to a bead and gem show with a friend to enjoy our last day of spring break.  Have a wonderful, blessed Sunday and thanks so much for visiting my blog!

Lee Ann

Sunny Stork

I just love this stork stamp, Bringing Baby, from Stampin' Up.  I think it is just the cutest baby stamp going!  Today's featured stamper over at Splitcoast has an amazing gallery and I chose an adorable card to CASE.  This is the result:

Have I mentioned that I think this is just an adorable stamp??  To make this card, I used Lucky Limeade CS for the base and used Twitterpated dsp for my mat.  I brayered So Saffron and Barely Banana onto my Whisper White circle.  I cut 2 blossoms with my blossom punch and then cut the blossom petals apart, laid them out around the circle and then gently lifted the circle, added adhesive around the edges and laid it back down on the petals.  I water colored stork and baby and fussy cut them out.  They are on dimensionals.  The tags are made with the jewelry tag punch and stamped with words from Tiny Tags. 
Thanks so much for stopping by and, as always, comments are very much appreciated!
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Well, after having lost my MOJO for most of this weekend, I seem to have found at least some of it this evening.  The sketch challenge this week over at OWH is a fun one.  It is not something I would have normally done, but I really like the results.

 I also discovered a wonderful site that gives you color palette suggestions.  It is where I found this palette.  I would never have even thought to put these colors together, but here they are!  I really like them.  The site is caller Design Seeds.  Check it out if you have lost your color mojo.

As always, thanks so much for stopping by my blog and thank you for your comments.
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 I was totally inspired by the color combo above, so decided to make another card.  I was disappointed in the card I made for the Stampin' Queen's Sketch Challenge this week (it looked better in my head) so I decided to give this difficult sketch another try. 

This is what I ended up with- 
not perfect, but far better than the first attempt.  I used Stampin' Up's Fresh Vintage set and handcut the floral components.  I used a 1 inch square punch on the stamps. The Pink Passion panel is scored with the Simply Scored tool from Stampin' Up.  Paper used is River Rock, Pink Passion, Whisper White,  and Patterns dsp. Ink used is Pink Passion, River Rock, Concord Grape and Tempting Turquoise.  The tag is stamped with a stamp from Tiny Tags and punched with the jewelry tag punch.
Thanks so much for looking!  I hope the sketch challenge is not quite so tough next week!

Ships Ahoy with OWH!

Well, after spending much of the day cleaning and decluttering, I was able to get down to the craft area and participate in the OWH Virtual Card Party again.  Here is my take on the challenge, Boats or Ships.

This card is made with an old Stampin' Up set, Ships Ahoy.  It is in Bravo Burgundy craft ink on kraft cardstock.  The image is mounted on Naturals Ivory and the card base is Naturals Ivory as well.  The dp would qualify as "Moldy Monday" product!  I could not find my natural twine so I dug around in my stash and found this navy and cream fiber, which I threaded through eyelets.  The tag is made with Stampin' Up's Tiny Tag punch and stamped with a sentiment from All Year Cheer.

Thanks for stopping by and your comments are greatly appreciated!
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Yeah!  Got a second challenge card in this evening-embossing!  This was pretty simple, although it helps to align the image properly.  I had a do-over with this card and then when I went to adhere the image to the card base, I taped the wrong side!  Oh well, nothing that a little ribbon can't fix. 

The card base is my brand new Calypso Coral cardstock from Stampin' Up- loving it.  It was stamped with an image from a Sale-bration set from Stampin' Up-Elementary Elegance- on Very Vanilla cardstock and then run through the cb.  The sentiment is stamped in Memento black on Stampin' Up River Rock and then cut out to match the image and popped up on dimensionals.  The designer paper is punched with an edge punch and the card is finished off with some vanilla ribbon.  I also scored the dp (which is hard to see) to give it just that little extra.

Thanks for stopping by!

Go Team OWH!

While most of the country is watching football( I think it is the superbowl!?), I am working on Mother's Day cards for OWH.  I do not know what is taking me so long to fill a box, so today was the day to "light the fire" so to speak.

First up, the sweet bird from SU's Nature's Nest.  I stamped a Lablanche stamp in Old Olive across the bottom of the K and Co dp I have had in my stash forever and then used Old Olive and stamped the Serene Silhouettes from Sweet N Sassy Stamps above the Lablanche stamp.  The bird is mounted on Certainly Celery and that is the card base as well.  The Sentiment is from Teeny Tiny Wishes from SU and is stamped on a Very Vanilla tag and tied to the beautiful dark green satin bow with embroidery floss.
 

Next is this sweet SU set, A Flower for All Seasons, stamped with Memento black and colored with copics. 

Sorry for the wonky photo, thought it looked OK when I took the picture...The card base is SU So Saffron and the layer is Ruby Red stamped with SU's Hello Doily in Real Red.  The red paper was then embossed with a CB ef.  the image was cut out with a Spellbinder and the edges were inked with So Saffron while the paper was still in the die.  This is layered on paper from Cosmo Cricket.  It is finished off with yellow satin ribbon, red gingham ribbon and a button tied with blue baker's twine.

Next up,  Sketch Challenge 107!  Tried to keep this simple and went for REALLY bright!  

The card bases are SU's Pool Party layered with Lucky Limeade.  The sentiment is stamped on Whisper White, which was pre-stamped with a Tim Holtz background stamp in So Saffron.  A few Lucky Limeade and Pixie Pink flourishes and flowers were added to the sentiment panel but are kind of covered up by the organza ribbon.  Sentiment is from SU and is in Pixie Pink.  The dp is K and Co. and is mounted on So Saffron.
Lastly, another card using the sweet A Flower for All Seasons set.

 The card base is Bashful blue and dp is Echo Park's, For the Record.  The image is stamped on white and colored with copics.  It is cut with a circle cutter and mounted on the beautiful die cut from Memory Box, Quinn.  That is mounted on whisper white, cut with a Spellbinder Die and stitched with white thread around the edges.  A wide yellow ribbon is sewn to the top edge.  The sentiment is SU's Teeny Tiny Wishes.  A dimensional to "pop" the image and 3 eyelets finish this card. 
Whew!  Done!  Sorry for the length, but I have been busy, Sandy!!!  Thanks for stopping by and as always, thanks for your comments.

An Out of This World Birthday

I tweaked this card from an earlier one I did this week for Operation Write Home.  Once I got the layout down I decided to "amp it up" a bit.  I really liked this stamp set, Little Boys Toys from Sweet N Sassy Stamps, when I spotted it, knowing it would be great for paper piecing.

The card base is SU Night of Navy; the edge is cut with an SU edgelit and embossed with their new embosslit.  The other 3 edges of the card are scored with the Simply Scored from SU.  I improved my clouds from the first card, making them whispy and ethereal, rather than "day time" fluffy.  After all, this is space!  They are lightly inked around the edges.  The moon is Barely Banana and embossed with a CB ef.  The edges are sponged with So Saffron.

The spacecraft is scrap dp and parts of it are layered on pop dots.  This makes such a difference from the original flat, single layer card. 
Thanks for stopping by!  As always, your comments and constructive criticisms are welcome and appreciated.

Back again, this time with the latest challenge from the OWH blog skip.  The challenge is to make a Clean and Simple (or CAS) card.  I took my inspiration from Sheila on the blog skip.   This CAS technique is to cut mulitples of a single die or punch and glue the layers together, creating what I call a faux chipboard piece. 

 In this case, I cut 2 flourishes in white followed by the top layer in Very Vanilla.  For the "flower", or Spellbinder scalloped circle die, I cut 5 in white and the top layer in Very Vanilla.  The edges of the card are scored. The sentiment is stamped in an old SU stamp from All Year Cheer.
I love this technique- it is easy and fun, albeit time-intensive.  Using this technique gives you a great monochromatic card.


Thanks for stopping by!  As usual comments are greatly appreciated!

OWH Midweek Throwdown

Where is the time going??  My son is back at college and into the spring semester, it is February (can you believe it??) and it is already Wednesday- 2 more days 'til the weekend.  Woo Hoo!!  If it is Wednesday it is time for the Midweek Throwdown over at Operation Write Home.  This week's challenge is to use die cuts and/or punches on a card.

Although I really love the shabby chic look, it is definitely not my style.  I decided to give it a try anyway on this challenge.  The card base is Pretty in Pink (SU).  The dp is ??? The beautiful stamp, Elizabeth (SU),  is stamped in Crumb Cake (SU) on Whisper White.  The image is colored with Pretty in Pink and Mellow Moss ink.  It is cut out with an oval Spellbinder and sponged around the distressed edges with Pretty in Pink.  The Flourish die (Cheery Lynn Fancy Flourish from Our Daily Bread Designs) is in Whisper White (SU).  The flowers are punched with a MS punch and Recollections pearls are used as flower centers.  A bit of lace and a small spray of pearls finishes this card off. 
So what do you think?  Does this pass as the "Shabby Chic" style?  Thanks so much for your opinions and suggestions and for stopping by.  Happy Stamping!

Sticking with Spring

 I continued with the spring theme when making a card for this week's OWH Sketch Challenge #105-
I used the sketch as a jumping off point, and strayed quite a bit from the original, but  I think you can still see the original sketch in my card.  I rotated the card and turned the 3 stripes into butterfly trails.  The 3 butterflies "create" the circle. 

Ingredients for this card include:

• SU whisper white, regal rose cardstock
•  basic grey ink; Memento black ink
• SU Shapes and Shadows stamps; SNSS Thinking of You
• thread
• Fiskars edge punch

I have to admit, this card was a bear to execute.  Ink seemed to get everywhere on the cardstock (admittedly, that is why there is a scalloped white piece of cardstock along the bottom edge-LOL).  But I do like the results.  Thanks for stopping by!

Challenged by OWH

Today's MWT from Operation Write Home was to make a black and white card with 1 accent color.  I thought this was going to be easy; I had a vague idea in my head, but boy, it really went no where!  I ended up with a very different card than I thought I started off making.  And now I know why I don't use black embossing powder too often!!  Even with the embossing buddy, the powder seemed to get everywhere on the white cardstock. From now on, I think I will use black pigment ink and clear embossing powder! 

For this card I used:

• Neenah solar white card stock
• Versamark stamp pad
• black embossing powder
• SU lucky limeade ink
• black organza ribbon and an adhesive pearl    

This card has been entered in the Stampin' Sisters for Christ Challenge.  Thanks for looking! 

Clean and Simple Card?

Today I tried to accomplish 2 things when card crafting.  One was to make the latestOWH Sketch Challenge and the other was to make a clean and simple card.  I find making clean and simple cards very difficult to do as I keep adding layers, ribbon, embellies, etc.  But today's sketch screamed "try it".  This old stamp set from SU, Close to Nature, seemed the perfect stamp for this card.

  

 

The card ingredients are as follows:

• SU Kraft, Naturals Ivory, and black cardstock
• SU Close to Nature stamps, sentiment
• Square punches
• SU's Simply Scored tool
• Black pigment ink
• Clear embossing powder
• Button, twill tape, embroidery floss

Thanks for looking!

OWH Sketch Challenge

 

This is for OWH sketch challenge 102.  This is the first OWH challenge I am doing; I had a hard time with this sketch.  Can't say I am particularly happy with the result of this sketch, but it is what I ended up with. The cardstock is SU grape, wisteria,  kraft and a discontinued green (gable, maybe).  I used the discontinued print pattern background stamp on the wisteria paper. Thanks for the first challenge of the year OWH and thanks for looking!