Merry Monday #111 - Use White, Aqua, & a Splash of Color

Good morning friends.  Playing along with this weeks Merry Monday Challenge, and I'm loving the color combo they've asked us to use...SO pretty!  I love aqua and white together, and then being able to add any splash of color of our choice is just the icing on the cake!  I had just picked up a piece of DSP by Echo Park a few weeks ago called Cozy Cardinals, and it was the perfect starting point for my card today.  Take a look:

The DSP was two sided, so I used both sides and then added a strip of white that I used a snowflake punch (MS) on to join the two sides together.  For my center panel I stamped the pine tree from SU!'s "Lovely As A Tree" in Aqua Mist ink, and then embossed my sentiment in silver (PTI's "Think Big Favorites #21").  I stamped a red cardinal (PTI's "In the Meadow") on the top of the embossed "P", and then added some Dazzling Diamonds snow spots to the background.  I matted both layers with Real Red cs to match the cardinals.  Love how quickly this card came together for me and just the overall softness of it! :0)

There's still lots of time to play along with this challenge, and LOTS of beautiful cards to be inspired by over at the Merry Monday blog.

Thanks so much for stopping by today, and have a wonderful Wednesday.  Road trip today to my oldest daughters to inspect how the nursery's coming along!  She's 26 weeks today, so we're getting closer and I'm just SO excited to be a grandma that I can hardly stand it!  I don't want to wish summer away after such a LOOOOONG winter, but.........

Festive Friday #32

Good morning friends.  Playing along with Festive Friday's today and have a very CAS card to share with you.  I struggled a bit with this challenge and I'm not sure why!  As usual, they gave us an absolutely beautiful photo as inspiration, but could not seem to find a direction to take it.  The photo itself shows fabulous elegance, and that's the direction a lot of the players took with their cards, but I ended up going the extreme opposite!  I think the problem was that after going through a bunch of stamp sets that I hadn't used in years, I came upon a retired SU! set called "Berry Christmas", and even though that set is NOT elegant, it is the set I wanted to use!  So I ended up using the colors from the inspiration photo, and this is what I came up with:

I simply used red and green for the wreath, hanger, and bird, and embossed with silver for the sentiment (PTI), and then matted with a piece of kraft cs.  Here's a look at the simple inside:

This is definitely not an elegant card, inside or out, but I think the simplicity of it is what spoke to me this week for this challenge.  And even though it is not elegant like the inspiration photo, the simplicity of it is what makes it beautiful to me! :0)  Each to their own, right?! :0)  And last but not least, here is the beautiful inspiration photo:

SO pretty, right?  I would love to sit in that elegant chair and have a cup of tea, but then I start thinking of our 2 dogs, and how that chair would look with dirty paw prints all over it, and I know that is NOT my style after all.  (Doesn't mean I don't enjoy looking at it though!!)

There's still a couple days to play along with this challenge over at the Festive Friday blog, and LOTS of beautiful cards to get you inspired too!

Thanks so much for stopping by today and have a wonderful Monday!! :0)

Meadow Greens Birthday

Good morning friends.  Just a quick post today with a bright and colorful birthday card I made with PTI's "Meadow Greens" stamp set. 

I used DSP from PTI's Harvest Gold Pattern Pack for the background, and Pool Party and Harvest Gold inks to stamp the flower and leaves.  Added glitter, a few sequins, and some bakers twine to finish off this bright and cheery birthday card!

Thanks so much for stopping by today and have a wonderful weekend!  We've recovered from puppy sitting Beamer and now it's on to a full packed weekend of graduation open houses!  I'll be back next week with a few more graduation shaker cards for ya, and of course a Christmas card or two too! :0) 

Make it Monday #166 - Debossed Backgrounds

Hello friends.  Because I needed another graduation card, and because I STILL had the "Life is Beautiful" stamp set out, I decided to combine the two along with the challenge this week at Papertrey Ink's "Make it Monday".  Dawn McVey has a great video on how to do a technique called debossing, and I love it!  Quick and easy, and adds a really nice touch to the backgrounds of your cards.  Here's what I came up with:

I started by stamping the smaller butterfly from "Life is Beautiful" with Raspberry Fizz, Aqua Mist, & Winter Wisteria inks (all PTI), and then did the debossing (click to enlarge the pictures to see better).  I used the same graduation stamp again from Paper Inspiration that I used on a couple cards I showed you last week, and also stamped and debossed a butterfly over the sentiment.  I forgot to take a picture of the inside, but I also debossed a few butterflies there too.  (yes, this technique is a tad bit addictive!)  I layered and pop dotted my sentiment to the background and added a graduation cap (PTI die) and some bakers twine to finish.  My friend asked for a "girly" graduation card, so I think this will fit the bill nicely!! :0)

Make sure you check out all the other great entries and Dawn's video over on Nichole Heady's blog.

Thanks so much for stopping by today, and have a wonderful Thursday.  (We're babysitting Beamer today, so 3 dogs is making our house just a bit wild!  My youngest (19) asked if this is what it was like when she and her 2 sisters were little, and gave a big groan when I said "yup"!  :0)

Merry Monday #110 - Christmas Food

Good morning friends.  Playing along with the Merry Monday challenge, and this week they are asking us to use "food" for our Christmas card.  While searching through my stash for something to use, I found a stamp I had never used before that I'm thinking fits just perfectly for "Christmas Food".  Food for the soul that is.  Take a look:

If you click to enlarge the picture, you should be able to read the poem that makes up the candy cane.  Here's the poem for those that can't make it out:

Look at a CANDY CANE, what do you see?
Stripes that are RED like the BLOOD, shed for me!
WHITE for my Savior, who's sinless and pure!
"J" is for JESUS, my Lord that's for sure!
Turn it around and a staff you will see.
Jesus, my SHEPERD, is coming for me!

After stamping the candy cane (My Sentiments Exactly) in Real Red ink (SU!), I used a portion of a Quickutz embossing folder and embossed the manger scene over the center of the candy cane.  Added a few red and iridescent sequins and red & white bakers twine to finish off this CAS card. 



You can check out all the rest of the entries and play along over at the Merry Monday site.  WARNING:  If you like cupcakes, some of the entries and cards from the design team are going to make you hungry!! :0)

Thanks so much for stopping by today and have a wonderful Wednesday!

Celebrate!

Good morning friends.  Hope you all had a long and fabulous weekend!  It was a beautiful weekend here in my neck of the woods, and we got lots of yard work done and flowers planted.  Yeah...color again!! :0)  LOTS of color going on in my stamping room too, as I replenish my birthday card stash.  Am totally in love with the new PTI stamp set "Life is Beautiful", so you will be seeing lots of butterflies on my blog! Take a look:

For the top die cut butterfly, I used the baby wipe technique (thanks Stephanie!!).  Just use 2 or 3 different colors of re-inkers and make an ink pad by inking up the folded baby wipe.  I used Melon Mambo, Real Red, and Pool Party.  The Pool Party when it mixed in with the other 2 colors turned to a shade very close to Wisteria Wonder, so it was not what I was expecting to see, but I love how it turned out!  I also stamped the bottom layer with Melon Mambo ink to create a shadow effect...it shows up better if you enlarge the photo.  I used a woodgrain embossing folder and Wisteria Wonder cs for part of the background, and the Filigree Border Die (PTI) for the right side of the background.  I also used a scrap of Raspberry Fizz Bitty Dot DSP and the Fabulous Frames Die Collection (both PTI) for underneath my butterfly, and some diamond bling for the center of the butterfly.  The sentiment is from PTI's "Birthday Classics: March" stamp set and another die from the Fabulous Frames Collection.  A few iridescent sequins finished up the card. :0)

Thanks so much for stopping by and have a wonderful Tuesday!  Think I'm going to go play with my butterfly set again.......     

May 2014 Blog Hop Challenge - #3

OK, one more!  I still had all my Aqua Mist and Melon Berry stuff out while looking through all the beautiful entries, and couldn't help but notice how many cards used the new "Life is Beautiful" butterfly set.  I hadn't used my set yet, but I sure had fun with it this afternoon!  So anyway, here is take #3 for this challenge:

I used my Melon Berry ink pad on a piece of acetate, and then used my Aqua Painter and the ink on a piece of scrap white cs.  Once it was dry I used a stamp from Gorgeous Grunge (SU!) and the Melon Berry ink to get the speckles, and then used the butterfly die (PTI) to cut out the shape.  I cut another butterfly out of Aqua Mist cs and then inlaid the cut out pieces of the Melon Berry one.  I also added Crystal Effects to the open spots on the Melon Berry butterfly.  I added a strip of Aqua Mist Bitty Dot DSP to the bottom of my card and then added the sentiment from "Life is Beautiful" just above that.  CAS, but still a really nice card to send out for a birthday. :0)  I will definitely be playing a LOT more with this set! :0)

OK, this really is it for me today, but if you haven't checked out all the other entries yet, it is totally a must this month...beautiful, beautiful cards!  Check it all out on Nichole Heady's blog.  Thanks again for stopping by, and enjoy the rest of your weekend! :0)