IM254 and JAI316 You're A Peach

Happy Monday, all!  I did a DSP paper share with a few of my customers, and I couldn't wait to play with some of the new designer papers!  My card today features the sketch from In{k}Spire Me, as well as the "Stripes" challenge from Just Add Ink!

I used some papers from Fruit Stand and an image from a retired Hostess set called Silhouettes and Script:

I realize that I should have placed my peach a little lower...hope the DT doesn't mind!  I stamped my peach in Peekaboo Peach and Pear Pizzazz, and since the peaches on the DSP have a watercolored look, and my image was rather flat, I added some shading with a blender pen and Flirty Flamingo ink, even on the leaf....can you spot it?

I really like how the shading turned out!  I added some Pear Pizzazz ribbons to continue the stripes theme.   Thanks for popping in!

Cassidy made a bed for her big doll by putting two wooden chairs together and used her pillow for the mattress:

She'll be a good mommy someday!

Enjoy your day!

Paper Players 300 - A BIG Celebration!

Howdy peeps!  I am so excited! Today is the Paper Player's 300th challenge! Woohoo!  I am honored to say that I've been a member since day one, when Lesley asked me to be on the design team of her first challenge!  What a ride!  I have had so much fun, made lots of friends and been inspired by all the creativity of the design team as well as guest designers!

Now on to this week's challenge... It's a Clean and Simple theme challenge from Jaydee: Celebration! To celebrate this occasion we have blog candy to give away, and lots of it! The team has assembled not one, not two, but ten grab bags full of stamping goodness! To be eligible to win one, all you need to do is play along with our challenge this week. You can play as many times as you like, but each needs to be a new project (no back linking, please) and see The Paper Players blog for our other challenge rules. Winners will be selected from all PP300 challenge participants using Random.org and will be posted on Saturday, June 25.

I know that "clean and simple" means a lot of different things to different people, but to me, it means lots of white space, limited stamps and elements and usually, but not always, one layer!  I finally had a chance to play with Swirly Bird...on my first new catalog order, I ordered the framelits and forgot to order the stamp!  So it finally arrived and I used Soft Sky, Marina Mist, Mint Macaron and Dapper Denim for my one-layer card:

I created a mask by stamping the solid image on a post-it note and cutting it just within the stamped edges.  After I stamped my center flower on SU's heavyweight white cardstock, I stuck the mask on and stamped the other two beside it.  I stamped leaves from Foxy Friends as well as Swirly Birds, placing them randomly behind the flowers, then added some speckles and a partial sentiment from Suite Sayings in Dapper Denim.  I admit, I did cut apart my sentiment (the bottom portion said "you" and had some greenery) but it is easily reassembled on my block if I want to use it whole again!  I added some white Perfect Accents and some sequins from my stash!

My final touch was to round one corner of the card to complement the rounded florals! For inspiration, I used the sketch from CAS(E) This Sketch, and Inkspirational had a masking challenge, so this qualifies for that as well!

           

Now, you might ask, what am I giving away as a prize??!!  My goodies will be a mystery surprise package - you won't be disappointed!  Most of the items are brand-new, a couple might be gently used, but still quite usable!  SO....do you want to play?  Do you want to win some goodies? Of course you do!  Please hop over to the Paper Players to see all the details as well as the beautiful samples from the team!  And let's CELEBRATE!!!

Miss Silly Girl!

FMS241 Thinking of You

Happy Friday, all!  I snuck in some stamping time while Cassidy took a bath yesterday afternoon! Here's the FMS sketch I used:

Since I already had Touches of Texture on my desk, and was playing around with watercoloring it, I decided to punch it out and make it the focal point of my card.  I added a panel of DSP (Scenic Scenery) and some Early Espresso cardstock, both diecut with Lawn Fawn's Stitched Hillside Borders:

To make the image pop a little more, I added a stitched circle die around my flower (Lil'Inkers):

The image is stamped in Stazon Black on watercolor paper and colored with an aquapainter and Crushed Curry, Delightful Dijon and Early Espresso inks!  The sentiment is from a past Paper Pumpkin kit, stamped in Early Espresso.  My final touch was to stamp and cut out the bee, then stamp it again on the card and pop it up with a sliver of dimensional!  Thanks for popping in today!

These are the tootsies of a little country girl who loves to run around barefoot in the grass, dirt and on blacktop, hence the bath in the middle of the day!

And really, the picture didn't do them justice...they needed scrubbin'!!

SIP52 Touches of Texture Thank You

Hey, peeps, hope you are all doing well!  Having an active five-year-old around all day is kicking my butt and keeping me out of my stamp room!  Phew!  I got some new goodies and finally was able to sit down and play with them for about an hour....this card uses the new In Color Peekaboo Peach and a new stamp set called Touches of Texture...what an awesome set, full of floral images and cool textures.  I used a lot of them on my card but still have some to play with yet!

I stamped the background of the floral image twice for each flower:  positioning and stamping it once, and then I turned the image a quarter turn and stamped again without reinking...it filled out the flower a little bit so that when I stamped the outline over top in Early Espresso, it had more depth to it.  I stamped a few of the stemmed floral images on the card base; stamped the speckles and the stems amidst the flowers, and finally, stamped the bee and colored it with a blender pen and some PP ink:

I stamped the smaller flower on a piece of scrap and stamped the grid design over top and fussy cut it out, then popped it up with a dimensional.  Some torn Early Espresso cardstock and a sentiment from Flourishing Phrases finished it off!  

I am going to enter this in the Stamp Ink Paper anniversary challenge, too, because this is my NEW favorite stamp!  And I love peach, so it might be my new favorite color too! Thanks for visiting today!

Our poor little swamp maple in the back yard is 25 years old and slowly dying.  The branches keep breaking off and a big one was hanging precariously, so John got the ladder and took it down. Cassidy was sure she could break it up by herself:

But Grampy had to come in and help:

The next thing I know, they've rigged up a "contraption", which I am sure was Cassidy's idea! Grampy fastened each stick to a bungee cord and Cassidy "hauled" them all up to the top of the slide:

where she slid them down the slide:

and into the garden cart!  Now this is sort of a Rube Goldberg affair, but it kept her occupied for quite a while!

Of course, Grampy had the job of upturning the cart, then Cassidy loaded the sticks into the burn box so we can have a fire in our chimeria later this summer!

Five-year-old ingenuity!  Enjoy your day!

GDP40 Birds and Blooms

Happy Tuesday, peeps!  I think my mojo has flown away with the little birdie that's on my card today!  I guess my mind is on other things!  At any rate, I tried four times before I came up with something that I felt was decent enough to submit to the Global Design Project challenge this week, which is to CASE Shawn De Oliveira:

There was no way I was going to attempt to duplicate that gorgeous watercoloring (at least not at 9:30 at night!) so I decided to CASE the sketch portion.  I finally decided on using one of the bird diecuts from Birds and Blooms, some pretty Lost Lagoon cardstock and some Christmas DSP from a couple of years back along with some images and a sentiment from Best Birds:

I just love the birds in this set of dies, but I need to see what some other creative stampers have done with them....I haven't quite figured out how to use them to their best advantage!  I cut this little fellow from Crumb Cake cardstock, did some sponging and added a little linen thread bow on his tail!

I also stamped the Best Birds cross-hatching in Versamark again, then stamped the flower images in Lost Lagoon ink; you can see how the LL ink is darker and stands out more:

I finished it off with a sentiment from the same set and some Lost Lagoon twine!  Thanks for popping in!

Hard to believe we have gone from this:

 to this in five fast years!

Enjoy your day!

MTS128

Hi everyone!  Monday mornings are a challenge aren't they?!  But it's a new day, a new set of possibilities! John & I want to thank everyone who offered condolences on the passing of his dad...they are very much appreciated!

I had a few minutes yesterday to play with the Match the Sketch sketch..they always have such nice ones:

I am loving the papers in the Serene Scenery tablet, but sometimes they can be a bit challenging!  I have found that stamping a big honkin' sentiment right on the paper works great!  This time I used one from Friendly Wishes and stamped it in Chocolate Chip...haven't used that one for a while! Check it out:

Isn't that dandelion paper the sweetest?  I cut out a scalloped square of Chocolate Chip cardstock with SU's new Layered Scallop Squares and used the crosshatch image from Best Birds to stamp on it. You all probably know this, but if you want a subtle color on your background, use Versamark ink....it doesn't overpower the cardstock like it might if you used a regular ink pad! It's not just for embossing!  I stamped the sunflower from Every Occasion (let's pretend that it's a dandelion) in Basic Black ink on watercolor paper, then colored it with an aquapainter and Crushed Curry and Delightful Dijon inks:

I added a little tiny shadow around the image with a Sahara Sand marker, some speckles, and mounted it on a Crushed Curry circle mat; the ribbon is some retired chevron that worked well with my color theme!  Hope you like it!

Speaking of pretending, my friend Claudia snapped this photo yesterday on the playground at church:

Cassidy is playing school with Claudia's grandkids...she is telling them to "line up"...sound familiar?!  LOL!  You can see that they're way up high, too....school in the sky!

Enjoy your day and be blessed!

Paper Players 299 Patriotic Hi!

Hi stampers!  It's Sunday, and that means another Paper Players challenge....this is our 299th challenge...so what do you think that means for next week?!  You'll have to wait and see!  Anyway, this week I am the hostess and I chose these colors for our challenge:

I just love that new Dapper Denim and can't wait to see it paired with Cherry Cobbler---yum!  You could go patriotic....or not!  My card also features the CAS Colours & Sketches sketch:

So here we go!

I have a little cross stitch picture in my kitchen of an apple with rustic red and white stripes and a blue star....and that was my inspiration for today's card! 

I stamped Very Vanilla, Cherry Cobbler and Dapper Denim cardstocks with the Hardwood background stamp, then formed my tag by cutting the "boards" apart and adhering them to a plain piece of paper and cutting them out with a tag die (My Favorite Things Blueprints 6).  I added some thick baker's twine, then I diecut the blue piece with a Nestie star die and added a couple of stamped stars from the new SU set Every Occasion. 

I also stamped the word "hi!" and the star with the Labeler Alphabet:

And I snuck in some of those cool enamel embellishments too!  It all went on a Very Vanilla cardbase embossed with the Lucky Stars embossing folder!  A sweet patriotic little note to send to someone!  Now, what will you create with these colors?  Share it with us over at the Paper Players, and check out the DT's samples as well:

• Claire
• Jaydee
• Joanne
• Laurie
• Nance 
• Sandy
• Linda
• Hannelie
• Colleen

On a personal note, I am sad to tell you that John's father Bill passed away Friday afternoon.  He had been battling lung cancer since the beginning of the year, so it was not unexpected.  He was a unique character...he regaled us (and anyone within hearing distance) with goofy stories, corny jokes and really awful magic tricks!  He loved to be the center of attention!  He will be missed!