What is blue, green, and yellow?

...this week's Flutterby Challenge, lol. We are challenging you to create a project using the colors blue, green, and yellow with your butterfly or fairy. I had so much fun creating this one that I think it might be my favorite one for the month. I created the banners stamps from WMS and Hero Arts. The butterfly and sentiment is from PTI. A nice CAS card for springtime.

I hope to see ya'll fluttering with us over at the challenge :)

Love You Very Mush

My amazing DH not only had a 2nd degree black belt test this weekend but he also met up with our oldest who was on a boy scout camping trip with my brother. I am truly blessed to be married to him. While he was away I created this little card for him using my new stamps from Clear & Simple stamps. I have been eyeing the stamps from this company for some time and just now was able to order some. In that order I got Fun Fungi and couldn't wait to play with it. I ended up making two cards. This is the second card I created.

I stamped the mushroom image and sentiments (they are two different sentiments from this set) onto some watercolor paper. I have been really into my Inktense pencils as of late and thought they would be fun to try out here. I love the vibrant colors I can achieve from them. I sponged the edges with Distress Ink Vintage Photo, washed the color into the center with my watercolor brush and then sponged the edges again. Once everything was dry I took my white pen to add the dots to the tops of the 'shrums. I brought some of the great to the top in the form of a faux green ribbon. The layout is from CAS(E) this sketch.

What's the buzz?

Over Spring Break I got to play around a little and I start two cards. One I am showing today. The other is for another day, lol. I finished this one Monday night. I decided to pull the cute little bees from There She Goes' Bee Happy set. I wanted to pair the bee with PTI's Hexagon plate so I decided to let that be the focus. Instead of die-cutting the plate I embossed it and the cardstock I used was a glossy one. I chose that c/s just so I could play around with some alcohol inks. I loved the colors I used because it turned out to be like honey (inks were Caramel, Butterscotch, and Terra Cotta). The sketch for the card came from Clean & Simple. The banner was stapled on with Tim Holtz's mini stapler. I stamped the bee onto white c/s and then sponged blue inks onto it to create a sky. A second bee was stamped and colored on scrap white c/s and then cut out and glued over the other one. This is also for the TSG's anything goes challenge.

Flutterby Time

Time for another Flutterby Wednesday Challenge. This week is all about sketches. The sketch below to be exact.

I decided to go very light and springy with my card this week. I found some old 6x6 Prima paper that I thought would work perfectly with the design. Added a little stitching and my background was complete. The banner was created out of sticky back canvas and the butterfly was painted on it as well. After I stamped the image I watercolored it. I wasn't paying attention to how wet the canvas was getting though and got some color outside the lines. Oh well, I still like it :)

I hope ya'll can play along too. Make sure you include a butterfly or fairy on it :)

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A Bit O' Luck

It's time for a WMS bog waltz. It has been awhile since I last played and was excited to get a chance this month. I tried to go with a non-traditional type of Good Luck card too and ended up with two cards. My cards were inspired by Kristina's card here.

The first card was my take on a "clean" CAS card. the only embossing on it is the gold chevron (from WMS's Off Beat Background). To give it a little of a worn look I didn't ink up the whole stamp and after I covered it in gold embossing powder I flicked the back a little harder than normal. The sentiment if from WMS's Free Spirit Sentiments and was embossed in gold onto black c/s. Since the blog waltz just happens to fall on St. Patty's Day, I just had to add a touch of green. Kristina used a yellow but I thought for my card a nice shade of green would be the perfect touch. And since I don't have buttons I opted to use black rhinestones instead.

(sorry for the yellow haze)

My second card came about because I was testing out dry embossing patterns with the chevron inked in gold. I wasn't finding a good embossing folder/plate and the gold was too light. After I decided to heat embossing the chevron I just started looking through my supplies to see what I could do for added interest to the background. My eyes landed on my sprays. It has been awhile since I played with them so I thought what the hay. I pulled out Maya Road's Emerald Metallic Mist and Tattered Angles Hay Ride Glitter Glam to use. Instead of spraying the mess (I tried and didn't like the result), I screwed of the top and flicked the ink on. For the Glam I simple used a small fan brush dipped in and flicked on the color that way. Then I took the gold ink pad and inked the edges of the cardstock (it was cut 5 1/4 x 4 so that it could have a clean border. I liked how Kristina's card had the rounded edges on I repeated that on this one. To finish off the card I applied gold bling.

In real life you can see the sentiment so much better. Hope you enjoy the rest of the waltz. Be sure to check out WMS's blog with a list of everyone waltzing along, and you may even find that you are able to play along too.

WMS Christmas in March

March 10th came and went and that means it is time for another WMS Christmas Card Challenge. The idea behind this monthly challenge is that we will have all of our Christmas Cards done by Thanksgiving with some last minute ones in December. I need lots of cards and I don't like doing the same design that many times so this is a great way to spread it out over the months and have different designs. This month is all about Navy and Citrus Green. This one started out difficult and then once inspiration struck I was able to create two designs for it.

The first card was inspired by Amber of Damask Love's heart card found here. I took a couple of the snowflakes found in WMS's Compliments of the Season to create the navy/green snowfall and stamped the sentiment in the center towards the top. Once I complete this cards I decided to try another design before it left me.

The second card uses WMS's Bright season and Compliments of the Season. For both cards I used Distress Inks in Chipped Sapphire and Shabby Shutters. I created the banners by breaking up the sentiment. I ended up making four of these too.

Poppies and Butterflies

It's time for another Flutterby Wednesday challenge. This week it is an open challenge which means anything with wings goes. I stuck with butterflies since I love them so much. The butterflies themselves are from a Martha Stewart punch. I swiped some blue ink onto a scrap of white c/s and once dried I simply punched them out. After I glued everything down I decided my card needed a little bling so I then took some blue stickles and coated my butterflies to give them some glitter and let them take center stage.

Flutterby Wednesday

Time for another Flutterby Wednesday challenge. This week we are sponsored by Pattie's Creations and it is an open challenge. This means you may create anything as long as it have a butterfly and/or fairy on it.

Short and sweet post as I am super busy with work and the state test coming up in less than a month. Make sure you check out the rest of the DT gals to see what fabby work they came up with :)

Oscar Inspired 2013

Claire over at Waltzingmouse has presented a fun challenge to create something inspired by one of the gowns on the Red Carpet from the 2013 Oscars. I used to love watching the Oscars. In fact, there was a time when I use to know most, if not all of, the movies that were nominated. Since kids I haven't gotten out as much, lol. The last few years I haven't been able to watch the Oscars, but I still love to see what was worn. I took my inspiration from the very classy Catherine Zeta-Jones. I love the tone on tone look with the gold and cream. She looked elegant as all ways.

For my card I chose to go with the classy look. On the vanilla cardbase I used PTI's Damask Designs to create a cascading effect similar to Mrs. Zeta-Jones's dress. I heat embossed the damasks in gold but then thought it would distract from the dress, soI decided to tone down the background by layering a sheet of lightweight vellum. For the dress I heat embossed the dress outline from WMS's You're Lovely in gold, cut it out, and then heat embossed the flourishes in gold as well. I was trying to achieve the same look as the Red Carpet dress here. After embossing all I could I then went over the top portion with a gold metallic pen. For the banners I simply used a banner die to cut them out from some scrap vellum. For the bottom banner I colored it with the same pen as the dress. I heat embossed the sentiment (from You're Lovely) and then used the same pen to add gold to the edges. I layered them underneath the dress and popped the dress up with foam dots. To balance the card a little more I added some cream ribbon to the top (although I think a gold one might have looked better). A classy card for a classy lady.

P.S. wouldn't this look amazing as a 50th wedding annv. card?  May have to do that next :)

Spread the love take 3

As promised, here is my last card (ok, three cards) for the Spread the Love challenge Amber of Damask Love created. My blog crush that inspired this card is another than Kristina, the master mind behind Friday Focus, Make a Card Monday, and so many other inspiring videos. Her style is amazing and clean. Love that her designs can be messy, fun, serious, for the young and the young at heart. In honor her and the challenge of using colors that I don't normally go to, I created three cards.

The colors above are beautiful together and they make me think of springtime. I don't, however, normally go to them when I create my cards. Not sure why though because they really are pretty together. Now, I don't have exact colors so the ones I used below where the closest I could come to with what I have :)

This first card was my attempt to create movement on my card like I see on some of Kristina's. This one was really a stretch for me as I don't normally do this I think. While I like the idea, I think that I needed a bolder sentiment as the one I used really gets lost in the circles.

Sorry for the bad picture. I just couldn't seem to get a good one, even after photo editing

The second card started out wonderfully. I love banners (the ones from WMS are some of my favs) and the clean look of masking for layers without the bulk, but with the sentiment so far down I decided it was too stark so I played with idea of making it a square card. The results of which is below. Of the three the third is my favorite. I think the size of the card works well with the three banners and the sentiment. The slightly rounded corners softened it up just a touch which made it feel more airy to me.

Spread the Love Prince

I couldn't just stop at one card for this amazing challenge called Spread the Love that Amber of Damask Love created. I thought it was a brilliant idea to give us all a chance to give a shout out to our blog crushes, and like I said on the last Spread the Love post I have a few. Be sure to check out the post that give all the deets about this challenge.

My next card that I couldn't resist creating is for my crushes is a shout out to two of them. The first is Kristen of "We are THAT family". She is a hometown girl you loves the Lord, her family, and her girls in Africa. Kristen has been called to be part of something big that allows young females to give birth to not only a baby but to the hope of what could become a better future for them and their children. The idea behind Mercy House is larger than life and she does it with our larger than life Heavenly Father. Her blog posts are real, funny, touching, insightful, loving. One of the first things that drew me to her blog is the way she writes about being a mother and wife. A couple of her last few posts have been centered around raising her son (she also has two girls). My other crush for today is Kim of Paper Smooches. I just love her fun designs and love to see what she comes up with next. In honor of both of my crushes I decided to create a couple of boy cards for my own two boys using PS images.

To start my cards I decided to use the above color combo from the challenge list. I love the picture and knew as soon as I saw it that it would be perfect for a card, a FROG prince card. This also allowed me a chance to play with the latest trend of gold dipping. I often times refer to my boys as my frog prince and have been waiting for the chance to ink up this super cute image from PS. For me, not only is the term endearing but also is a reminder to my family to "Fully Rely On God". I kept both cards rather simple (which really works b/c right now I could use simple in my life, lol) and just focused on the image. The first card came together super fast as all I did was color the little cutie with my copics and the crown in a gold marker and then die cut him out. The red strip was embellished with a matching red banner that I dipped (heat embossed) the tail in gold and embossed the word "prince" in gold too. (the sketch is from Freshly Made)

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My second card uses an image from PS's Potpurri set to create the background on the dark grey. I colored the frog the same was as the last card but cut him out more as a square. The red strip on the bottom was dipped in gold like the banner above and on the opposite side I embossed "prince in gold again. To connect the two sides I drew a gold line along the top and bottom. I love how quick these both came together.

I have one last post for this challenge and I promise I will be done :)