a Gina K thanks!

Many of you probably have been invited to join the new online community, Paper Craft Planet.  I must say, it is a hoppin' place!  I haven't had a chance to really check out all the details, but what I have seen so far, I really like.  jessjean has issued a Gina K challenge to make a thank you card with a Gina K stamp set, so I thought I would try it. (I hope that link works for everybody!  If not, join the Gina K group!!!)  I only have two Gina K sets, and I wanted to use some of these DPs from K & Company, so I chose the simple vase & flowers image from Whimsical Autumn:

This also is for today's Limited Supply challenge at SCS, which was to use a rectangle, circle and ribbon, no other embellishments.  This is a rather muted card, but sometimes you need a card that is not flashy & bright; this is it! 

I will be away for the weekend visiting lovely Cape May, NJ, so you won't hear from me!  Enjoy your weekend too!

• Stamps:  Autumn Whimsey, Gina K;  Paisley, SU
• Paper:  Bordering Blue, Close to Cocoa, Sage Shadow, Watercolor, Roam by K&Co
• Ink:  Stazon, Bordering Blue, More Mustard, Always Artichoke, Sage Shadow
• Acc:  Circle Punches, Aquapainter, Grosgrain Ribbon

Holiday Treasures

I just received my latest SU order and in it was the DP "Holiday Treasures".  It is gorgeous, and although I got several packages of DP this time around, I ripped into this one first so I could play and make some easy Christmas cards.  Since SU has an upcoming promotion with rub-ons, I also wanted to showcase them as well!

So here are "three easy pieces":

•  Stamps:  Many Merry Messages, Best Yet, Say it With Scallops, Holiday Blitz
• Paper:  Confetti White, Riding Hood Red, Certainly Celery, Baja Breeze, Chocolate Chip, Kraft, Holiday Treasures DP, Haiku DP
• Acc:  Glitter, Scallop Square Punch, Circle Punches, Old St Nick Rub-ons, Rhinestone Brad, Grosgrain ribbon

And finally, this is an old favorite.  I am sure everyone has seen the hot chocolate holders made from an envelope.  Here is my newest one featuring Mr. Twigster:

If you're not familiar with this, just seal an envelope (this is a SU Whisper White one); decorate as you wish.  Fold it in half crosswise and cut apart; crimp one side and decorate the other.  The hot cocoa packet (folded to fit) will slide into the crimped envelope; the outer piece will slide over top.  Add a ribbon and you're good to go!  Makes a sweet little gift for a teacher or coworker.

• Stamps:  Mr Twigster, Jumbo Snowflake Wheel, Best Wishes & More
• Paper:  WW, Frosty Day DP
• Ink:  Stazon, Tangerine Tango, Bashful Blue, Kiwi Kiss, Close to Cocoa, Bashful Blue Cartridge
• Acc:  Glitter, Crimper, Gingham Ribbon, Med WW Envelope, Blender Pen, Hot Cocoa package

Thanks for visiting!!!

Mixed Bag

Today is a dreary, rainy day again and all I want to do is lay on the couch and veg!  But I do have a "mix" of things I have been working on to show you.  Then I am off to pack up for stamp club tonight!

The first one is a masculine sympathy card--very plain & simple.  I used my nesties to cut and emboss, something I forget to do sometimes!  But my friend Dana had been asking about it, so I thought I would try it out.  See what you think:

• Stamps:  Winds of Grace, Essential Sentiments, MFT
• Paper:  Sage Shadow, WW, Handsome Hunter, Autumn Vine DP
• Ink:  Sage Shadow, Handsome Hunter
• Acc:  Sage Shadow grosgrain, Nesties, dimensionals

My next one uses an embossed PTI Christmas tree I had sitting on my desk, unused from a previous project.  I bought this CB folder (whose name escapes me) a while back and finally used it after seeing so many nice things with it.  AND I broke into my BG Wassail!!!   To bring out the embossing, I rubbed my Encore gold pad over the embossed areas, which really gave it a neat effect.

I feel like that star on top makes it unbalanced....so maybe I'll do it again a little differently!

• Stamps:  Believe, PTI
• Paper:  Bravo Burgundy, Brushed Bold, Basic Grey Wassail
• Ink:  Versamark, Craft Bravo Burgundy, Encore Gold
• Acc:  Clear EP, Gold EP, Heat Tool, CB Small Labels Die, Burgundy Grosgrain, Gold Cord (ret SU), Dimensionals, CB folder

My final card was a CASE (sort of) after I saw this card by Michelle on Paper Planet.  SO CUTE!  I remembered I had this stamp, so I set off to do today's SCS challenge with it.  I just used a plain corner rounder, and poor Elzy has a severe case of sunburn.....don't ask!  But I love this BG Two Scoops paper and I had just enough to use on this card:

I had seen someone use a filigree brad and a regular brad with a snowflake, sorry I can't remember but if I figure it out, I'll give credit.  I had some sugar-coated brads that matched my DP, so I paired it with a snowflake glittered in Dazzling Diamonds!  The snow is all glittered up too!  TFL!

• Stamps: A Winter Song, Merry Christmas, Elzybells
• Paper:  Baja Breeze, Sage Shadow, BG Two Scoops, Watercolor
• Ink:  Stazon, Baja Breeze, Craft White
• Acc:  Markers, Corner Rounder, Piercer, Martha Stewart snowflake punch, Wide Baja Grosgrain, Sage Shadow Grosgrain, DD Glitter, Filigree Brad, Sugar-coated Brad

Color Throwdown Challenge #18

This week's Color Throwdown is from our newest member, Kimberly Crawford!  She has an awesome blog; you can see it here.  I am really looking forward to seeing what she comes up with!  So her first color choices are:

Remember to link YOUR creations to the posts at the Color Throwdown blog, located here.  If you don't have these exact colors, that's fine....use something similar.  And  if you post on SCS, use CTDI8 as your key word! 

I was just telling my friends Georgette & Charlette that I NEVER use Pale Plum...oops!  So I had to eat my words and pull out my stamp pad, dust it off and put it to use:

Although the images are stamped in Pale Plum and Old Olive, the background paper is definitely more of a Almost Amethyst color....but I still thought it worked!  It uses Beate's Sketch Challenge #64 in sort of an Asian theme, which is way, way out of my style comfort range!  I also added a little piece of mulberry paper along the edge to reinforce that theme.  Thanks for looking!  And be sure to visit the other challenge blogs:

• Broni - Splashes of Watercolor
• Kisa - Kisa's Paper Cuts
• Tammy - Stamp Happy
• Cathy - Crafty Thoughts
• Kimberly – For the Love of Paper

 

• Stamps:  Eastern Blooms, Here for You, Verve
• Paper:  Confetti White, Basic Grey LilyKate, Mulberry
• Ink:  Old Olive, Pale Plum, Chocolate Chip
• Acc:  Scallop Edge Punch, Oval Punch, Daubers, Bling. Old Olive Marker, Old Olive Twill (ret)

Sweet Gratitude

I am kinda feeling blah today; I have caught my DH's nasty cold.  So I have sweet gratitude that I didn't have to work today! But really, that's not what this post is about!!

Today's SCS color challenge is Kiwi Kiss, Pretty in Pink and Riding Hood Red.  And I still wanted to make a card for the NMBS blog challenge (tearing) but I needed to do it with a SU stamp set---so I did. Then I realized I was using retired paper.  OH WELL.  Here it is:

Doesn't that glitter look yummy?  Plus, I thought I was being quite smart to add buttons, so I could participate in Sharon Johnson's challenge from Friday, here.  But that was supposed to be a FALL card with buttons.  (See what happens when I don't feel well?).  So I dug up a card I was just sort of fooling around with an added a button to it:

This was just a play-around card---do you have cards like that, where you're just "playing around" with new stamps?  I also experimented with my Twinkling H20's on this leaf.   You can see it better here.

 

 

Now I'm off to cut cardstock for my Stamp Club that meets on Thursday.  Don't forget to stop back tomorrow for the Color Throwdown Challenge!  We have a new member and her work is AWESOME!  I just look at her blog and sigh, her work is so creative!  And she is a sweetie!   TFV!!!

• Cupcake card stamps:  Crazy for Cupcakes, EFP, Short & Sweet
• Paper:  WW, Bella Rose, Prints DP, Riding Hood Red
• Ink:  Stazon, Kiwi Kiss, Pretty in Pink, Riding Hood Red
• Acc:  Markers, Blender Pens, RRH ribbon, Button Bouquet, Nesties, 1/8" Circle Punch, 3/4" Circle Punch, Dimensionals, Glitter & Glue, Spica Glitter Pen, string

• Gratitude card stamps:  Thankful for You, Inkadinkado; Autumn Harvest, SU; Autumn Seals, Impression Obsession
• Paper:  Confetti Cream, Misc DP
• Ink:  Chalk Inks by SU (ret) in Earth Colors
• Acc:  Twinkling H20, aquapainter, Old Olive narrow grosgrain (ret), Button Bouquet, string

Welcome Baby

Just a quick post today before I run out the door!  But first, has anyone noticed that the word verifications on peoples' blogs are easier to spell?  Or I am just imagining it?  It used to bug me because they would string 10 squiggly letters together and I would always type them wrong....now it seems they have more vowels and they are easier to type.  I like it!  But maybe it's just me.

Anyway, I rarely need baby cards....I guess most of my friends are either past or prior to having babies!  But I do have a friend at church who is having her third, so we are visiting her tonight for a little surprise impromptu shower!  She doesn't know the gender, so that makes it a bit more challenging, but she wants a cross stitch sampler after the baby is born, so one of my gifts to her is to do a cross stitch.  So I made a little "gift certificate" and put it in this card.  It uses a retired SU set, Feathered Friends and some retired Prints DP.  She is a very "green" person and I think her style is probably plain & simple, so I kept the card fairly simple too.  I only wish I hadn't used Confetti paper---that big "confetti" at the top of the card bugs me!  Oh well!  Thanks for visiting!

• Stamps:  Feathered Friends (ret. SU)
• Paper:  Confetti White, Watercolor, Prints DP, Cert Cel
• Ink:  Stazon Black
• Acc:  Markers, Nesties, baby rickrack, Buttons Diecut, White Gel Pen 

A Couple Challenges

It has been a loooooong weekend with lots of activities, but I did manage to stamp a couple things here and there, nothing exciting, a couple challenges.....the first one was Our Creative Corner's challenge, which was to watercolor something.   Yippee, that's my favorite, but when I looked at my stamps, nothing jumped out at me.  So I just grabbed some fall images and decided to stamp the basket of apples from Carolyn King's Whimsical Autumn set:

I also used tearing on my card, which qualifies it for this week's NMBS challenge, but I forgot my stamp wasn't a Stampin'Up! stamp, and that is a SU group, so I guess that disqualifies it!  (That will give me an excuse to stamp another card!!! ) This ALSO is a sketch challenge from Jen Del Muro's blog  "I {heart} 2 stamp". 

• Stamps:  Whimsical Autumn, Gina K Designs; Crazy for Cupcakes, SU
• Paper:  Ruby Red, Garden Green, More Mustard, Watercolor, Retired SU that I can't remember the name of
• Ink:  Stazon, Cr Caramel, More Mustard, Ruby Red, Garden Green, Bravo Burgundy, Sahara Sand
• Acc:  Aquapainter, Circle Punches, Red Gingham colored with Cr Caramel marker, white gel pen

I visited my stampin' friends/sisters Georgette and Charlette yesterday and we were comparing notes and swapping likes & dislikes and I said I decided to get my first Flourishes stamp set, Forest of Trees, after seeing Susan's post here.  Charlette said she had a duplicate of that set, so I went home with it!  Wasn't that sweet of her?!  So although I didn't try to replicate Susan's card, I did play with the set a bit:

This was just embossed in white on white cardstock and sponged with Handsome Hunter and Sage Shadow inks, then mounted on matching cardstocks.  (The card base looks gray, but it is Sage Shadow!!)  I added some organdies and a tiny little bling, as well as a tiny sentiment from PTI's Mixed Messages.  There is glitter on the branches too but you can't see it here! :(

• Stamps:  Forest of Trees, Flourishes; Mixed Messages, PTI
• Paper:  Sage Shadow, Handsome Hunter, WW
• Ink:  White Craft, Sage Shadow, Handsome Hunter
• Acc:  White EP, Heat Tool, Organdy Ribbons, Bling, Gelly Roll pen, sponge

Finally, I played around with a neglected Spectrum pad and came up with this one:

This uses Taylor's sketch #40.  Honestly, I just threw this together because I was running out the door to another function, so it probably is not the best use of this beautiful image!!  It was stamped on Whisper White, which looked too stark to me, so I brayered it with Creamy Caramel, added some Basic Grey DP from Recess and Cupcake, some wide grosgrain ribbon and again, a sentiment from PTI's Mixed Messages.  I realize my proportions are a little different from the sketch, but I hope it will be okay!

•  Stamps:  Forest of Trees, Flourishes; Mixed Messages, PTI
• Paper:  Old Olive, Whisper White, Basic Grey Recess & Cupcake DP, Ruby Red, Hostess Patterns DP
• Ink:  Spectrum Pumpkin Patch, Ruby Red, Creamy Caramel
• Acc:  Brayer, Grosgrain Ribbon, Brads, 1" circle Punch, Designer Label Punch, Ticket Corner Punch

I am looking forward to using this stamp set a lot more in the future, and taking a bit more time to be focused on what I stamp!!!  It was definitely a rush, rush weekend!  I need to get back to my routine on Monday so I can rest!  LOL!   TFL!
LeAnne