My Favorite Color Combo

I had decided last night that I was NOT going to play along with the Splitcoast Color Challenge.  I already had a post up (this is my second today!) and I absolutely HAD to get my craft corner cleaned up.  The piles are starting to get high and everytime the cat jumps on the table, they all start to collapse.  So...this morning was dedicated to cleaning.

But, I made the mistake of looking at the challenge - and it's one of my favorite combos ever!!  Suede and Crumb together are perfect and the pop of Melon is just stunning.  I guess I will clean later!!

I looked through recent sketch challenges and found this one by clean&simple that I thought would give me the best pop on the Mambo!

This is the first time that I had used the sentiment.  It's a fairly new set at All That Scraps called Great Greetings by AmyR Stamps.  She has some GREAT sentiments.  This one is particularly nice because it has the large sentiment, plus the smaller tag line and they are separate so you can use different colors.  (Of course, you will have to find your stamp-a-ma-jig to make them line up!) 

I think I can hear some of you thinking, "I'm not getting that set, I can't use my stamp-a-ma-jig."  Not true!!  Here is Stamp-a-Ma-Jig 101.  Left click on it to make it big, then right click to either save it or print it.

• Stamps: AmyR Stamps Great Greatings (at All That Scraps)
• Ink: Stampin' Up Soft Suede, Crumb Cake
• Paper: Stampin' Up Soft Suede CS and dsp, Melon Mambo CS and dsp, Crumb Cake CS
• Accessories: Cuttlebug border embossing folder, Stampin' Up Birds and Blooms Sizzlits (flower) and Butterfly Embosslit, linen thread, misc button

My Dream Birthday

Today is my last day as guest designer over at the Sweet 'n Sassy blog.  You will have to pop over there to get all the details on this card based on my dream birthday!

LIM: A Sketch Challenge

After monogram week last week, Less Is More took pity on us and gave us a nice basic sketch - what a relief!!!

I was born and raised in South Dakota of German/Swedish descent, so I was trained from the cradle that there was one "sin" above all others....but I am now going to sin....wait for it....I am going to brag!!  I like my card!  (Was that too much?  Was it over the top?  Am I too full of myself??!!!)

I have no great reason for liking it.  I've seen the die cut flower with buttons done before - it's certainly not original to me.  There are probably even cards like it already posted on the Less Is More blog (but I never look until I submit!).  I like the freshness of the white, the pop of the colors and I really love the daintiness of the little 4 1/4" square.  It all makes me smile!

Now I am off for an exciting day of emptying out my son's 5th grade classroom!!  His teacher (who will also be his 6th grade teacher) won a $10,000 classroom makeover.  So my husband and I are off to pack up the old classroom.  Sadly, the son for whom we are doing this can't come.  But it's a good reason...both kids are volunteering at Vacation Bible School.  (You'll have to come back later when I post pictures of my 6'2" teenager dressed up like a Panda Bear!)

• Stamps: SU Tiny Tags sentiment
• Ink: only black
• Paper: Papertrey Harvest Gold, Raspberry Fizz, Orange Zest
• Accessories: Papertrey buttons to coordinate with paper, Papertrey flower die, Stampin' Up Tag Die, Papertrey Harvest Gold ribbon, crochet thread, Cuttlebug embossing folders

SCS CAS: Red, Black and White

Todays' Splitcoast Clean and Simple Challenge is to use Red, Black and White.  I had just received an order from Papertrey Ink that included Gracious Vases - an absolutely perfect set to do in a clean and simple challenge!!

I stepped up the simple little vases with a coat of Smooch Pearlized Top Coat so they have a subtle shimmer.  The flowers have a small dot of black Stickles in the center. 

There are two lessons that I have learned from many wonderful cardmakers:

• "Three" is a more pleasing number than two.  So, adding three vases is more visually pleasing than just two vases and I had to have three gems!
• Create visual triangles.  This is completely related to the first point as it simply means you want three embellishments, points of color, etc. at three different points.  This helps the viewers eye travel across the card. After I had the vases and ribbon on my card, it looked unbalanced.  Simply adding the three red gems gave me three points of red color and I had my triangle!!

These are simple artistic principles, but they make a huge difference in any and all cards that I make!

• Stamps:  Papertrey Ink Gracious Vases
• Ink: Memento black and copics
• Paper: black and white
• Accessories: misc black and red ribbon, Smooch Pearlized Top Coat, Martha Stewart glitter glue, gems colored with copics

colourQ Patriotic Glitter Dots

As much as I love the colourQ Color Challenges, I wasn't going to play along this week as the color scheme was very patriotic and summery and I had done all of my patriotic cards for our church card ministry. 

But then I was wandering the aisles of Michaels yesterday and they had their own line of glitter dots (on sale!) - and one of the packages had the PERFECT colors for this challenge!

The Paper Players challenge that came out today was a sketch - and with the three stripes it was the perfect backdrop to this patriotic card.

• Stamps: Studio G small clear set (in the $1 bin at Michaels but at least a year ago)
• Ink: Stampin' Up Brilliant Blue, copics
• Paper: Stampin' Up Brilliant Blue, Tempting Turquoise, Poppy Parade, Bashful Blue
• Accessories: Star punch, Michaels brand Glitter Shapes, Nestabilities ovals

This is my second post for today...

CAS-ual Friday: Getting Edgy

Given that I love clean and simple cards, the challenges at CAS-ual Fridays are perfect for me.  This week's challenge is "Getting Edgy".  Simply add some sort of punches, ripped, or other edge.

I have so many basic border punches, but there is such a trend right now toward big, dramatic edges.  Many companies are coming out with dies or super-sized punches to accomplish that edge.  But many of you already have a tool that works - Spellbinders Nestabilities - specifically the various Labels.  In this case, I took the biggest die from Labels 18.  I used it sideways and slid it onto my panel.  Then I rolled it into the Cuttlebug JUST to the point that the die starts to go under the paper.  (If you keep rolling you will get an impression of the remainder of the die).  Ta da!!  I have a big, dramatic edge!

• Stamps: Our Daily Bread Bird and Butterfly Labels, Daisy Bucket sentiment
• Ink: Papertrey Ink Ripe Avocado, misc markers
• Paper: Papertrey Ink Ripe Avocado
• Accessories: Papertrey Ink Simply Chartruese ribbon, Martha Stewart butterfly punch, Nestabilities Labels 18, Cuttlebug embossing folder

The Joy of Digis

I was playing Words with Friends (basically online Scrabble) with my 10-year old niece out in Washington D.C.  We always chat while we play and she said she was excited for her birthday party today as she and her friends were getting their nails done.  Her birthday is next week and I knew that I needed to make her a card so as soon as she mentioned getting her nails done...I knew what I wanted to do.  But I don't have a nail polish stamp.  A quick Google search of "nail polish digital stamps" and now I have a nail polish stamp. 

If you have never played with digital stamps before - there is a whole wide world out there to try!  And they can often be exactly what you want!

I have covered the entire bottle with Crystal Effects then added a light dusting of glitter.  Sorry this doesn't show up well!

• Stamps: Tiffany's Doodles digital stamps
• Ink: copics
• Paper: Stampin' Up Peach Parfait, DCWV Pocket Full of Posies
• Accessories: Stampin' Up Top Note die, Crystal Effects, glitter, misc ribbon, gems colored with copics

This is my second post today...

Papertrey June Blog Hop Challenge

Once a month, Papertrey Ink holds a blog hop for all of their customers.  It's an amazing event with hundreds of gorgeous entries.  Even if you don't participate, you should go take a look.

For this month, they gave us an inspiration photo:

I was immediately drawn to the stripes so I punched a rainbow of colored squares.  But the photo was also very feminine, so I simply added a small flower on each square using Versamark Dazzle Frost.  It's a very clean and simple card but still has impact!



I have many other Papertrey cards on my blog.  Just click on "By: Papertrey Ink" under Labels down the left column.

• Stamps: Papertrey Think Big Favorites 3 and small flower from With Sympathy
• Ink: Black and Versamark Dazzle Frost
• Cardstock: (from top to bottom) Papertrey Spring Moss, Hawaiian Shores, Plum Pudding, Lavender Moon, Lemon Tart, Orange Zest, Raspberry Fizz
• Accessories: misc gingham ribbon

Paper Players and ColorLab!

I'm putting together a couple of fun challenges this morning - the sketch challenge from The Paper Players and the color challenge from Create, Ink!.

I am using one of my newer sets that hadn't yet seen ink.  The butterfly in the Stampin' Up set Strength and Hope is truly gorgeous. 

Now I am off to do some trigonometry??!!  Isn't it just amazing what we do for our children?  My 15-year old has never had a problem with math - he takes Honors and A/P classes.  But trigonometry stopped him in his tracks.  So, being "mean" parents, we found an on-line course for him to do over the summer.  Just in case he still didn't get it, I'm doing the course along with him (due to my math major and a career as an actuary).  Of course, my major was LONG ago - it's easiest to measure as a certain unmentionable percentage of a century!!??  My husband was elected to read a book along with him on the Constitution that was assigned as summer reading.  My husband's task is to help Andrew learn how to take notes.  Andrew's idea of taking notes is to spew back EVERYTHING he just read.  So they are both taking notes on each chapter, then comparing in hopes that Andrew starts to learn how to pick out the major points.  My husband and I are back in school!

• Stamps: Stampin' Up Strength and Hope, sentiment from Clear Dollar Stamps Terrific Little Tree (March 2010 SOM)
• Ink: Stampin' Up Bravo Burgundy and Sahara Sand
• Paper: Stampin' Up Bravo Burgundy, Sahara Sand and Pink Pirouette
• Accessories: Spellbinders Impressabilities (embossing) and rectangle nesties, PaperTrey Ink Tiny Tags die, misc pearls colored with copics

Back to D2D!

A number of months ago, I was managing to play along with the weekly challenge from Designed2Delight.  If you use the digi image from the week and post your card to their blog, you get the next week's image free.  It's a great way to build up your digi stash - free!!  Plus, they have many other cute digis.  (I went to buy this week's image so I could play and ended up buying five others!)

Unfortunately, a number of months ago, my church card ministry needs came first - I needed to making sympathy cards and Designed2Delight was putting out darling spring images.  I couldn't make them work together.  So I got out of the weekly D2D habit.

Then I saw this week's image and had to play along (but the deal ends tonight so you probably won't have time to play along this week!)

I used colors from The Color Dare (Peach Parfait, Pear Pizzazz and Real Red) and the sketch from Sketch Frenzy Friday (although I switched the sentiment and the brads/gems).

• Stamps: Designed2Delight Fresh Cut
• Ink: copics
• Paper: Stampin' Up Peach Parfait, Pear Pizzazz, Basic Black
• Accessories: Sizzix embossing folder, Stampin' Up Crystal Accents, misc ribbon and gems, Martha Stewart glitter glue on flower centers

CR84FN and SCS Sketch

I just love the CR84FN acronym - Create For Fun!  Isn't that so true??  They do a weekly color challenge which is so nice because they give the colors along with great inspirational photos.

I paired these colors with today's Splitcoast Sketch Challenge thinking that the yellow in the color scheme could be a sun.



And here's my card...

• Stamps: Papertrey Signature Greetings
• Ink: Versamark
• Paper: Papertrey Lemon Tart, Aqua Mist, Hawaiian Shores, Spring Moss
• Accessories: Taylored Expressions Leafy Branch die, Stampin' Up Butterfly Embosslit and mini flower punch, Papertrey Aqua button and Hawaiian Shores ribbon, white embossing powder

I also have the great pleasure today of passing along an award that I received back in April(!).

There are five things that I have to do for this award.

1. Say a big thank you to Jen at JENerally Speaking for passing this award along to me.  Jen has a wonderful blog focused on clean and simple cards - definitely worth a visit!

2. Post this award on my blog - here it is and only two months late!

3. List three things that I love about myself.

• I love that I have been raised to be unfailingly polite - like when a new line opens at the grocery store - I actually let the people in front of me go first!
• I love that I can laugh until I cry, go red in the face, and possibly snort at the antics of my wonderful boys!
• I love that I am equally comfortable sitting on a rock high in the Rockies with a picnic lunch or dressing up and enjoying fine dining!

4. Post a favorite picture.

This is an older photo (I just couldn't face weeding through the thousands of photos in my recent files that I haven't organized in years!) but it is a great example of where my family is at our best!  We do love being in our mountains!

5. Pass the award along to five people.  This is the toughest thing yet.  I actually watch 188 blogs - sad, huh??  To watch that many, I do it through Google Reader - which means my blog reading is almost "anonymous" - I just scroll through all the posts.  Sadly, this means that I don't have any relationship or even awareness of which blogs that I am reading. 

I love it when I receive a blog award, because it forces me to slow down, pay attention to whose blog I am reading, and pay attention to who is reading and commenting on my blog.  When I have done this with past awards - I have made THE BEST blog friends.  These become the people whose blogs I view individually and take time to comment.  So...here is my list of the five blogs that I picked for this award.  These are people who view and comment on my blog and whose blogs I discovered when I slowed down.  (There are many more of you, but I just received another award - so I will be listing more in the next week or so!!)

Arlene at WaterDots

Aileen at Stamp Up Your Craft

Jenny at Crafting in the Country

Laura at Ink & Sheep

Anne at KingstonMamaCrafts

I hope you all have fun discovering some new blogs!!!

The Beauty of Baptism

It's my day as Guest Designer over on the Sweet 'n Sassy blog.  Here's my card for a baby girl's baptism...but you will have to pop over to the Sweet 'n Sassy blog for all the details!!

Tall & Thin Color-Blocking

I am back!  And it is amazing how hard it is to get back into making cards.  I have been missing my craft table all week, so I sat down this morning with two CAS challenges (to start easy) and it has taken me hours to figure it out.  Of course, the reality is that I very thoroughly cleaned and organized my craft table before I left and now that I am back I have absolutely no idea where anything is!

I am playing along with the Splitcoast CAS Challenge to make a tall and thin card and I am playing with the CAS-ual Friday Challenge to color block.

We left for Washington D.C. a week ago last Friday.  My youngest son, Erik, was selected to attend the Junior National Youth Leadership Conference.  We dropped him off on Sunday for his first sleep-away camp, but on his first full day we saw that the group was visiting various D.C. memorials so we "stalked" them to get a photo.  We were far away and I was using a zoom lens, but he still managed to see us and wasn't happy at all about it! (See the kid with the green pants and untucked shirt!)

My oldest son, Andrew and I, spent a few days touring D.C. before heading to Richmond to visit my mother-in-law.  (My husband stayed back here in Colorado with the pets??!!)  Andrew and I did a lot of regular sight-seeing, but his favorite thing was the food trucks.  This is Tasty Kabob, a food truck we had seen the day before with a line so long it stretched past all the other food trucks who didn't have any customers. Andrew tracked them down the next day in a different part of D.C. so we had great fun exploring the Metro system trying to find them!

We are absolutely thrilled to be back - partly because it was 90 and humid when we left Richmond and it's 50 and raining here in Colorado (I HATE heat and humidity.)  I am so looking forward to getting back into the cardstock and glitter and stamps!

• Stamps: Papertrey Flower Fusion #1
• Ink: Stampin' Up Pear Pizzazz
• Paper: Stampin' Up Real Red, Pear and Daffodil dsp, Pear and Lime cs
• Accessories: Misc yellow button, Cat's Pajamas flower button die, Square 3/4" punch, crochet thread, misc pearls colored with copics.

A Misty Paradise

Here is the card that I made for my Guest Designer post at Sweet 'n Sassy stamps.  You'll have to go to their blog for the details!

As you read this I am likely getting ready to spend more time wandering around Washington D.C.  As I am writing this (a week ago before we flew to Washington D.C.) the weather there was 100+ degrees and very humid.  Say a little prayer that it's better now, because I do NOT do heat!!

I'll be back with a post next Monday!

Less Is More: Monochrome

It's the last day of the Less Is More challenge to make it monochrome.  I have had this card made for days and haven't posted it because I am simply not convinced that it's CAS.  I feel like the colored background made it seem "busier".  I re-read the Less Is More instructions and it clearly says that colored cardstock is OK.  Here it is:

What finally convinced me to post it was re-doing it with white.  This card doesn't meet the challenge guidelines of monochrome, but it made me feel better about a CAS design...this feels clean to me! We all have our personal definitions of CAS, and I am clearly a person who needs true "white" space, not just open space!

For both cards I simply stamped the smaller flowers, masked them (check out this post for tips and techniques to make masking easy), then stamped the leaves by stamping once "full strength" and then again without reinking.

A big FYI - in 15 minutes I am waking up my family to start our typically frantic process of getting ready to fly out of town.  We are headed to Washington D.C. to deliver my youngest son to a leadership camp.  (Supposedly he gets to meet the occupants of the White House - we are thinking that's probably the dog!).  Then the rest of us are spending time with my in-laws.

Unlike other wonderful bloggers who have a whole week of posts prepared and scheduled for you - I was lucky to get this one up.  I have a post scheduled next Tuesday in line with my duties as Guest Designer at Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps.  But other than that - I won't be back until Monday the 20th.

I am sure, during the hours spent with my in-laws, I will seriously be missing my craft corner.  But I do have my iPad and I all of my favorite blogs available for reading, so I can get my card fix that way.  I'll be back soon!

• Stamps: Stampin' Up Fabulous Florets, sentiment is from Verve Miracles Blossom
• Ink: Stampin' Up True Thyme, River Rock
• Paper: Stampin' Up Shimmer White, River Rock and True Thyme
• Accessories: Masking Fluid

Hooray for Natasha!!

I am spending this morning at my niece's kindergarten graduation...Hooray for Natasha!!!

I wanted to make something bright and cheerful for the occasion.

The sketch comes from Splitcoast.

• Stamps: My Favorite Things Pure Innocence
• Ink: Memento black and copics
• Paper: Stampin' Up Pure Poppy, Peach Parfait, Sunny Garden dsp
• Accessories: misc ribbon and punches, Stampin' Up Crystal effects and glitter

Beauty by the Sea

I am thrilled to be the June Guest Designer for Sweet 'n Sassy stamps.  My cards will be on their blog on Tuesdays throughout June.

I love Sweet 'n Sassy.  They have the perfect variety of stamps for any cardmaker and particularly for the church card ministry that I work with.  They have clear stamps and digital stamps.  They have wonderful Christian stamps and really cute stamps - particularly Cocoa Mouse!  I have done a number of cards using their stamps (check out "By: Sweet 'n Sassy" in the Labels section down the left side) and I got a new order in the mail today so you will be seeing even more!

Here's my first card as guest designer:

For all the details and instructions, you will have to check out the Sweet 'n Sassy blog for today!

Splitcoast CAS: A Play on Words

Today's Splitcoast Clean and Simple Challenge was to use a Play on Words.  I started browsing my stamp index and found this stamp that I have never used!  I love it - the big eyes on the owl work perfectly for the sentiment!!

• Stamps: Clear Dollar Stamps What a Hoot and Owl Be Praying
• Ink: Adirondack Brown and copics, Stampin' Up Peach Parfait, Pear Pizzazz
• Paper: white
• Accessories: Stampin' Up Crystal Effects (on his eyes), Paprika Stickles (flower centers)

i{heart}sketches and Stamping Bella

There is a monthly sketch challenge at i{heart}2stamp that I typically find myself doing on the last day of the month. It comes out on the first Saturday (yesterday) and I am doing June's sketch today (Sunday)!  I just decided I didn't want to have to remember every single day in June that I had a sketch challenge to do!

Their sponsor for June is Stampin' Bella and I have some great Bella stamps!

Then I had to pick colors.  I am still on a high from winning a roll of retired polka dot Melon Mambo ribbon on E-Bay last night so I decided that I would allow myself to use some of my precious stash.  It turns out that this week's color throwdown challenge uses Melon Mambo!

• Stamps: Stamping Bella
• Ink: Memento black, copics
• Paper: Stampin' Up Certainly Celery, Melon Mambo, Pumpkin Pie dsp
• Accessories: Nestabilities square, scalloped square and circle, Stampin' Up Melon Mambo ribbon, Spica glitter pens (on the lace)

We spent yesterday at Erik's lacrosse tournament (they are still winning so we are spending most of the day there today also.)  In Denver, the popularity of lacrosse is growing at an amazing rate.  There are 20+ fields in use at this tournament all day long and they have a huge lacrosse vendor area and play area.  Erik tried out something that I had never seen before - the human-sized hamster ball:

He crawled into a giant
plastic ball.

They blew it up with what
looked like a leaf blower.

They rolled him up the
ramp to the pool.

In he goes!

He spent the whole time
trying to stand up!

It was brief, but he did it!

Then they just unzip him
and he's done!