MTS223 and FF134 Dragonfly Birthday

Happy Monday peeps!  It's another cloudy, gray day here, with more snow flurries predicted tomorrow---but warmer temps later in the week, yay!  I thought I would try to bring spring inside by stamping a birthday card with the Match the Sketch sketch and the pretty colors from Fab Friday:

I dusted off Awesomely Artistic and pulled out the dragonfly image, stamping it in the three lighter challenge colors:

I used the same technique as I did on yesterday's card, a partial diecut with the Stitched Shapes framelits, then mounted them on Night of Navy scalloped mats and adhering them to a card that had been partially embossed with the Seaside embossing folder:

I stamped the sentiment from Beautiful Day directly on to the Fresh Florals DSP, using my Stamparatus, which was helpful because sometimes the DSP doesn't accept the ink quite as readily as regular cardstock!  Finally, on the inside, I used a sentiment from Truly Tailored (it's not just for guys!!), adding a couple more dragonflies:

So happy you popped in today!

This is what you get when you play Mexican train with a double fifteen set of dominoes and only two players!!!  It was quite the "train"!

Enjoy your day and be blessed!

Paper Players 388 Congrats

Hi everyone!  Sunday means another Paper Players challenge, and I am the hostess today with a color challenge for us!  I find purple shades very challenging to use...I like them, but I can't always figure out how to use them.  I was sad to see the Amethyst color retire several years ago....SU replaced it with Wisteria Wonder and it just has too much gray in it for my liking!  But I digress!  Here is the color palette, I hope you like it and will play along with us:

True to form, I struggled with my own challenge!  I finally decided on something "light"...I had some watercolor paper on my desk from my crafting earlier in the week, so I dabbled some water on it, then added some Wisteria and Eggplant inks to it, then stamped some florals from Beautiful Bouquet on top once it dried:

For fun, I did a partial diecut, leaving the stem intact, added the little bow diecut from the set, a few sequins and a Tranquil Tide mat from the Layering Circles Framelits:

I mounted it on a Very Vanilla panel that was embossed with the Perfect Polka Dots EF, then mounted that on a Wisteria Wonder mat and an Elegant Eggplant card.  My final addition was the sentiment,  from the same set, diecut with a banner die, and a "Happy Anniversary" sentiment on the inside:

As I said, I hope you'll play along with us!  Unlike me and my struggle, the DT seemed to have no problem coming up with some amazing creations!  Check them out:

·        Claire

·        Jaydee

·        Joanne

·        Laurie

·        Nance

·        Sandy

·        Elizabeth

·        Annie

·        Jan

Despite the stubbornness of spring, which really doesn't want to make an appearance, we did have a day over a week ago that was vaguely warm; it wasn't warm enough to warrant bare feet, but Cassidy and my great-nephew seemed to think it was okay as they did some "digging" in my SIL's woods:

I had to draw the line at playing in the creek in their bare feet...it was still March, after all!  But they got some fresh air and much-needed outside exercise!  Enjoy your day and be blessed!

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	Beautiful Bouquet
Card stock & Papers	Wisteria Wonder, Elegant Eggplant, Tranquil Tide, Very Vanilla, Watercolor
Ink	Wisteria Wonder, Elegant Eggplant, Tranquil Tide
Accessories	Sequins (Sylvia's Etsy Shop)
Tools	Big Shot, Perfect Polka Dot EF (ret), Stitched Shapes Framelits, Bouquet Bunch Framelits, Aquapainter, Dimensionals, Banner Die (Nestabilties)

CTS266 Christmas Eve

Happy Saturday, peeps!  I have an uber-CAS card for you today, since it seems my mojo has taken a wee little vacation.  CAS is all I could muster up today!  Anyway, the sketch from Cas(e) This Sketch was fun:

It reminded me of a little Cornish Heritage Farms silhouette Christmas stamp  I had in my stash; it's called Stocking Elves, and sadly, it's retired:

Of course, I had to reverse the sketch to make the stamp work!  I just think the image of these three little boys sneaking down to hang up their stockings is so sweet!! 

With the help of my Stamparatus, I stamped them in Tranquil Tide on a Very Vanilla notecard, and added sentiments front and inside from Kaiser's Sentiments-Traditional Christmas.  The only accent was a Tranquil Tide ribbon!  Easy peasy!

Thanks for popping in today....be sure to stop by tomorrow as I am the hostess at the Paper Players!  Hopefully I can conjure up some creativity!! 

Wayne finally got to set up one of Cassidy's Christmas presents from Santa!  Unfortunately, the weather has not been very kind to us....still having temps in the 40s and lots of wind.  Spring just does not want to cooperate!  But I am sure sooner or later it will appear...or we'll go directly to summer!

 Enjoy your day and be blessed!

AYSI173 Just Sitting Here

Happy Friday, peeps!  It's time for another As You See It challenge; this week it's a sketch, with lots of room for interpretation:

First, before I share my card, I must confess that I CASEd this idea from Loll at  CAS Watercolour Challenge!  Their challenge this month is "bird", and I just loved her card with the little bird diecut against that beautiful watercolored background!

 I thought it would work well with our sketch challenge, so I just had to make my own: 

My own background was a happy accident!  I love to watercolor WITHIN the lines, but doing a random background like this makes me very nervous!  I started out by embossing the big fuzzy image from Touches of Texture twice in Versamark and clear embossing powder; I positioned it once on my Stamparatus, then turned my watercolor paper and stamped it again.  After heat-embossing the image, I just began filling in the area around it with various shades of green ink.  Imagine my surprise when it ended up looking like a big white hydrangea (at least that's what it looks like to me!)!!!  

I added some stamped leaves from Blooms and Wishes to continue to floral look, then diecut a bird  from a scrap of watercolor paper using the Birds and Blooms framelits. I watercolored it in some wren-ish colors and positioned him atop the edge of the blossom, and then added a sentiment from Sitting Here, stamped in Basic Black:

I didn't punch out the diecut areas of the bird, but left them intact by putting a little piece of tape on the back to hold the wing and the eye in place.  I mounted my watercolor piece on a card of Thick White Cardstock and I really love how it feels like a little piece of art!  

I hope you will play along with our sketch at As You See It this week!  Everyone really rocked the color challenge we had, so let's keep the mojo going!  You can check the samples from the DT here, and share yours with us as well!

So apparently this was the year for unusual egg dying! Not only did Cassidy tie-dye eggs, she painted some:

and she even dyed some with rice....the rice and the dye go into a baggie, then the egg gets shaken in the baggie, and the dye is transferred to the egg!

And big kid Wayne even got in on the action!

Enjoy your day and be blessed!

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	Touches of Texture, Sitting Here, Blooms and Wishes
Card stock & Papers	Watercolor, Thick White
Ink	Garden Green, Tranquil Tide, Basic Black, Chocolate Chip, Crushed Curry, Versamark
Accessories
Tools	Heat Tool, White Embossing Powder, Big Shot, Birds and Blooms Framelits, Mini Dimensionals, Dimensionals

IB14 Cozy Cup

Happy Thursday, everyone!  Hope you're having a good week so far!  I've been out of my stamp room, busily painting and freshening up our downstairs bathroom; it's not done yet, but at least it's now usable!!  I did manage to pop into my room and make a card for Laurel's latest Inspired By challenge!  It uses a piece of Color Theory DSP, which has been greatly neglected; this one happens to in shades of blue:

And here's the prompt from Laurel:

This one threw me for a bit of a loop--so many possibilities!  In the end, I went with the blue and white and a cup of coffee, LOL!  This Coffee Cafe set is so fun, but I tend to want to stamp it in green and brown to match the Coffee Break DSP that complements it!  So I really had to stretch to stamp it in Dapper Denim and Marina Mist! I also embossed the Color Theory paper with the (retired) Modern Mosaic embossing folder and used a sanding block on it to give it some texture.  The "friend" stamp is from Apron of Love; the little sunburst border is from November 2017's Paper Pumpkin.  I also added the Corduroy Ribbon from the current mini catalog, some retired sequins and white baker's twine.  Oh, and I almost forgot, it's hard to see....the edge of the card is embossed with the Cable Knit embossing folder, to mimic that beautiful blanket in the photo!

And on the inside, I added another little strip of the DSP and some coffee rings from Timeless Textures:

I hope you'll come along and play with us at Inspired By!  You'll definitely be inspired by the DT's creations as well!

Cassidy and Dana bought me an orchid for Easter..it's so pretty!

Enjoy your day and be blessed!

Wee Little Snowman

Happy Monday, peeps!  Late today, and I only have a very quick CAS Christmas note card for you that fulfills three challenges:  the FMS sketch, the Merry Monday red and white challenge, and the Cards in Envy negative challenge!

For my "negative", I chose to punch out a little snowman from a very old retired SU punch, and I backed him with a scrap of Dazzling Diamonds glimmer paper, then diecut him with the Stitched Shapes circle framelit:

I added a scrap of polka dot paper from the retired Polka Dot Parade DSP, a little sentiment from Merry Crittermas, and on the inside, a Paper Pumpkin sentiment from November of 2017.  Oh, and I did do a bit of embossing on the front too!  Easy peasy!  Enjoy your day!

PP387 Sing to Him

Happy Easter, everyone!  Or, as our church family likes to say, Happy Resurrection Day!  I hope that you have a wonderful time with your family and friends today!  Laurie is our Paper Players hostess with a wonderful theme...I don't think we've ever had this theme, so I'm even more excited about it!  Here we go:

I remembered I had gotten this pretty little Inky Antics bird stamp a couple years ago and thought it would make a nice card to give to our church's praise team as a way to thank them for the lovely music they provide each week.  I love this verse! Since the stamp is photopolymer, I actually cut the bird apart from the rest of the stamp; that made it easy to ink the branch in Smoky Slate and the bird in Memento Black.  I stamped the verse over a portion of the branch so it would fit into the circle diecut a little better.  The musical panel is from a retired Cornish Heritage Farm stamp, also stamped in Memento Black:

I added a partial scallop in Lost Lagoon as well as a little stitched scallop along the music piece.  My final embellishment was some Silver Glimmer leaves cut from the Everyday Jars Framelits:

For my layout, I used the CAS(E) This Sketch for this week:

I hope you'll play with our musical challenge this week!  We can't wait to see your creation in our gallery!  For more inspiration, check out what the DT created:

·        Claire

·        Jaydee

·        Joanne

·        Laurie

·        Nance

·        Sandy

·        Elizabeth

·        Annie

·        Jan

As I promised, here are the tie-dyed eggs we did!  Basically, you wrap a hard-boiled egg in a layer of paper towel, drip food coloring on it, spray with water and let it dry.  

I have oodles of bottles of retired SU reinkers, so we used those, but I had too many layers of paper toweling, so the designs were rather faint.  

  

They were cute, though!  Maybe I should say "psychedelic"!!!  She had fun doing them and that's all that mattered!

Enjoy your day and be blessed!

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	Songbird (Inky Antics), Aged Sheet Music Scrapblock (Cornish Heritage Farms Ret)
Card stock & Papers	Whisper White, Silver Glimmer, Lost Lagoon (ret)
Ink	Memento Black, Smoky Slate
Accessories
Tools	Big Shot, Everyday Jars Framelits, Scallop Circle Die (Nestabilities), Stitched Borders Die (Pretty Pink Posh)