Happy Beeday to you!

This weekend I had some time to really get some stamping done and had a fun and productive time.  

My favorite go-to is always a sketch challenge and Fusion Card Challenge is one of them.  I pulled out some stickers that my friend Savannah O'Gwynn has sent me with some 12 x 12 papers.  I was able to create a bunch of cards using them that I will share at a later date.

The heart banner is the sticker piece and I included just a cute little bee from Stampotique.  Please see below for my details.

Card details:

Stamps:  Stampotique Bumble Bee 2079, Simon Says Stamp Birthday Messages

Stickers:  Illustrates Faith Fundamentals Stickers

Christmas Cheer

 

I broke out another darling image from Stampotique to create these fairly simple cards.  I again used the Echo Park papers and a little bit of coloring with my Copic markers.

Card details:

Stamps: Snowy Fran 6127

Cardstock: Confetti White, Echo Park

Embellishments: Peapod twine from The Twinery and sentiment strip from CZ Design 

May Peace be your gift

 

Going along with my mojo and continuing to create more Christmas/Holiday cards I pulled out this fun image and sentiment from Stampotique and also combined it with the Fusion Card Challenge for the week.

I always love using patterned paper and always try to incorporate it somehow on my cards...I mean I have enough of it that I need to use it.

To give this image a little more depth I added some dimensional dots behind it and added some gems to my image panel as well.

Thanks for stopping by and hope you have a wonderful week!

Card details:

Stamps: Tree-O 3070 and May Peace...8933 from Stampotique Originals

Cardstock: Confetti Cream, Echo Park Warm & Cozy,  Michael's Red 

SDC283: Anything but a card

Ohhh, this week over at Stampotique Designer's Challenge we were given a difficult challenge for me-Anything BUT a card.  I don't know why I always find that challenge a doozy, and this week was no exception.

I had some ideas in mind but then I decided at the last minute to change it up.  I always love to decorate things that I can display.  I had some large wooden paperclips that I hadn't used and wanted something to display my new family photo.

I grabbed a few of my all time favorite stamps and went to work.  First, I created a background strip for the paperclip using the Honeycomb Background 8116.  I stamped the Big Bee 3008 twice, once on white cardstock which I colored with my copic markers and then again on some vellum cardstock which I cut out to create some iridescent bee wings.

I then stamped the Medium Bee 3000 and cut it out to adhere to the top as if he were flying right off my paperclip.  There was a little open space so decided a sentiment of some kind was in order.  Since there wasn't a ton of space, I created something using my Typewriter alpha 10018.

Hope you have enjoyed my creations each week as much as I enjoyed being a guest designer for Stampotique Designer's Challenge.   Jump on over and join us by thinking outside the box and creating Anything but a card.

SDC282: Only Blue, week 2

Anyone who has followed my blog knows I'm a fan of clean and simple cards.  This week was crazy and I didn't find the time to be as creative as I would've liked to, but all in all I love the way this card turned out.

Come join us this week at Stampotique Designer's Challenge for your chance to win a gift certificate.  All you have to do is use all blue.

For my card, I layered 3 different colors of blue for my base and stamped my Majestic Tree 10034 image in the same color as my base.  I added the Wishing you love and laughter 8994 sentiment in a darker blue and embellished with a few pearls.

SDC282: Only Blue

Wow!  Two weeks in a row I've gotten some stamping accomplished.  Thank you to all of you that stopped by my blog or commented on Facebook, I appreciate the visits and missed my stamping friends!

This week over at Stampotique Designer's Challenge we are going ALL BLUE.  Create using only blue colors this week.  For my card I pulled out one of my new stamps, Communitree 6225.  If you haven't ever looked at the samples that go with the stamps, I encourage you to do so-those creating them have blown me away!  I paired Communitree with the Happy Bird-day sentiment 8962.

I have to say this was probably one of the easiest ones for me as I love the color blue and tend to use this frequently with my cards.  Do you tend to use some of the same colors each time you create or do you go outside your comfort zone and spin the wheel of color sometimes?

Hope you will join us this week and show us your creations!

Stampotique Guest Designer-September

I'm so excited as this month I was asked to be Stampotique Originals Guest Designer.  As most of my followers know I was heavily involved with Stampotique up until we decided to move and I took a new job and life got super busy.  While I've always loved stamping and scrapbooking this found me packing things up and has been hard to get back into stamping at the level I was at...I do enjoy it though and this opportunity to join Stampotique this month has allowed me to break out my stamps/ink again.

This week over at Stampotique Designer's Challenge it's Background Love.  Create an awesome background.  Stampotique has some amazing background stamps, but they have so many incredible stamps that you can create a background with as well. 

For my creation this week, I broke out Kate's Doodle Cube to create my background.  I then added in my sentiment with Alphabet Lower-I love this set and it's versatility.  You could use it to create a background or a sentiment like I've done.

Come join us at Stampotique Designer's Challenge for your chance to win some a gift certificate for goodies.

Stampotique New Release Blog Hop

You should have arrived from Nellie van Leeuwen's blog for our blog hop.

 I am joined by the Stampotique Design Team to showcase the images released from Stampotique this month.  If you haven't had a chance to see what's new, you can do that over on the Stampotique website here.

As with any of the releases, there is a variety of stamps from our artists for any stampers, scrapbookers and journalers out there.  We always love to see what your favorites are so while you are hopping around, make sure to stop by and say "hi" on our blogs and come back here and tell us what some of your favorite images from this release were.

We'll be giving away a $30 gift certificate for stamps and a grab bag of stamps on two of the blogs-but you won't know which ones they are so stop by and visit them all.  We will pick the winners on our first challenge in September.

I've been the design team coordinator with Stampotique shortly after I begged and begged to be a part of the design team.  I've thoroughly enjoyed my time on the team, the great friends I've made, the way I've grown as a stamper, and mostly being a part of the Stampotique family.  This is my last blog hop as I turn the reigns over to my wonderful design team member in taking over for me, Claudine Criner.  Claudine will do a fabulous job and while I may not be as involved with Stampotique as I have been in previous years, I will always remain a faithful stalker.  Thank you to all of you out there who always took time to leave comments or drop me a note-I always appreciated getting them.

I especially want to say a HUGE thank you to our design teams through the years and all the support they have given me as their coordinator-there are so many extraordinary women out there on our team, and I'm so blessed to have been a part of this team and their lives.

Have fun hopping!

From here you will want to hop on over to Arwen McCullen's blog.

For my card, I'm wishing all of you love and lots of laughter!  I'll be taking a hiatus from stamping for a bit while my family takes the leap of putting out house up for sale and finding a new (and improved) house that fits our family's needs.  So, while I may not be posting my own creations-I'll still be checking all of yours out whenever I get the opportunity.

Thanks for stopping by!

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Card details:

Stamps: Curlz 11013 and Love and Laughter 8994 from Stampotique Originals

Cardstock: Basic Black, Baja Breeze, Real Red and Rustic White

Inks: Memento Tuxedo Black, copic markers

SDC195: Human with Animal Head

Arwen McCullen is our hostess this week at Stampotique Designer's Challenge and she's visualizing all of us with animal heads this week:

I love to combine designs together.  This time I want to see something funny.  Combines a human body with an animal head.  I'm looking forward to your creations.

As you can easily see from my card, I totally goofed on this one.  I originally thought it was animal body with human head and then after I finished this, I realized a "fairy" probably doesn't qualify as an animal...but oh well-I got creative so I'm posting it anyway!

I broke out the Copics and colored a bit this weekend and kept the card fairly generic so I could add the sentiment on later.

Hope you will join us at Stampotique Designer's Challenge this week for your chance to win a $30 gift certificate for stamps.

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Stamps: Dorothy 9238 and Merry Fairy 6009 from Stampotique Originals

SDC191: Circles

Magda is our hostess this week at Stampotique Designer's Challenge and she has us running in circles:

"I like using shapes in my projects especially circles. They can give interesting effects on projects depends in what way they are used. I would love to see circles on your creations. How you will use them, depends on your imagination."

For my card I pulled out one of Kate Crane's images, watercoloring it in with some bright colors.

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Card details:

Stamps: 11004 Boots, 6184 Circles Cubed and 10019 Barcode from Stampotique Originals

Cardstock: Basic Black, Raspberry Fizz, Soft Sky, Certainly Celery and Whisper White

Inks: Ranger Archival Ink Jet Black, watercolors

Embellishments: candy dots

SDC190: Stitches

Coby vanWilligenburg is our hostess this week at Stampotique Designer's Challenge and she has us in stitches:

I love stitches in my creations, sometimes stamped sometimes made by hand and sometimes with the sewing machine.  I challenge you to use stitching in your creations this week.

Our neighbors just had a baby boy a few weeks ago and so perfect time for me to break out some stitches on my card.

I had a little help from my friend Kristen as I've been in quite a creative slump lately so she made the suggestion on the stamp to use and I went with it.

I watercolored my bunny and balloon and added some Crystal Lacquer on the balloon to give it a shiny surface.  I decided to add the banner by stamping it onto some patterned paper and then coloring it a bit.

I also the Always Playing with Paper sketch challenge #29

Hope you will join us this week over at Stampotique Designer's Challenge for your chance to win a $30 gift certificate for stamps (does not include shipping).

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Card details:

Stamps: 9008 Congratulations, 10001 Banner, and 7310 Upward Bound from Stampotique Originals

Cardstock: Marina Mist, So Saffron, Confetti White and Day Dreamer by Dear Lizzy

Inks: Archival Ink Jet Black, watercolor

Embellishments: twine and button, Cyrstal Lacquer

SDC188: Favorite Background Technique

Nellie van Leeuwen is our hostess this week at Stampotique Designer's Challenge and she's got us breaking out our techniques:

What's your favorite technique to make backgrounds?  I love making backgrounds with distress ink on a craft sheet.  I use distress ink, memento, brusho's, distress stains, whatever I feel like working with. Quick and easy and a different and surprising result every time.

So, I'm going to admit know I'm not a technique stamper so I don't have a favorite but I decided to try my hand at using some untouched masks I had, so I sprayed my background with my mister colored with a few drops of ink and then laid my mask down and sponged the color on it.

It's pretty simple but I love how it ended up-just my style I think!

I also used the Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge #261 with this card, worked so well with it.

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Card details:

Stamps:  10004 You're Strong and 10034 Majestic Tree from Stampotique Originals

SDC186: Stars

Carol Fox is our hostess this week at Stampotique Designer's Challenge and she's got stars in her eyes:

Feature stars this week, one or more on your arty creation.  As part of your background or a main feature, it's up to you.  Just have fun with the challenge.

For my card I used the Mojo Monday sketch and while my card is pretty simple, I love making the sentiment the focal point of a card.

Card details:

Stamps: 3051 Jo's Star, 7321 Grow Your Dreams from Stampotique Originals

Cardstock: Cherry Cobbler, Old Olive, Daffodil Delight, Whisper White, Crumb Cake, Gold cardstock

Inks: Archival Ink Jet Black

Embellishments: flower and card candy

SDC184: Bring me sunshine

Kaz Boughton is our hostess this week at Stampotique Designer's Challenge looking for a little sunshine:

It's cold in the UK and I can't wait for it to warm up.  Show me something sunny to hopefully encourage the sun to come out.

This image never gets old for me, I always love coloring it and never mind fussy cutting around it to pop it off my image panel.

Colored with my copics and added some subtle grey pearls to the center.

Hope you will join us for the challenge this week and your chance to win a $30 gift certificate for Stampotique stamps.

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Card details:

Stamps: 9016 Earth Laughs in Flowers and 2149 Horizontal Tiles from Stampotique Originals

Cardstock: Basic Grey, Rustic White, Blushing Bride, paper from stash

Inks: Memento Tuxedo Black, copic markers

Embellishments: $1 adhesive pearls from Michael's

Stampotique New Release Blog Hop

Card details:

Stamps: Love 8882 and Kate's Angel 11006 from Stampotique Originals

Cardstock: Regal Rose, Pink Pirouette, Rustic White, Crate Paper Oh Darling

Inks: Memento Tuxedo Black, copic markers

Embellishments: tag punch, mini clothespin, lace, sewing, petal ink liquid pearls

Today we are so excited about the new release for Stampotique Originals!!!  We've been keeping it under wraps for weeks now, but know that some of you got a sneak at one of our new stamp artists.  

Stampotique is thrilled to add to the line-up the designs one of our former team members and popular mixed media artist, Kate Crane (is that squealing we hear amongst you?).  We know you all won't be disappointed with the line-up of stamps from all our artists this go around.

Are you ready to see some wonderful artwork showcasing some of the new stamps?  There are 50+ new ones being released this time around, so plenty for everyone to choose from (or choose them all).

Card details:

Stamps: Bark Cube 6192 and Poochas Gracias 8972 from Stampotique Originals

Cardstock: Rustic White, Basic Black, My Mind's Eye Union Square

Inks: Memento Tuxedo Black, copic markers

Retro Sketches #153 and CQC279

Hop along with the design team and 2 special guest bloggers leaving comments along the way.  We will choose 3 random winners from 3 selected blogs along the way to win some goodies.

We will choose our winners with our next challenge on February 25th.

You should have arrived here from Claudine Criner's blog. Your next stop along the way will be Astrid Stulemeijer's blog.  If you get lost anywhere along the way you can come back to the Stampotique Designer's Challenge blog to find your way.

Janet Klein

Coby vanWilligenburg

Claudine Criner

Kim Howard

Astrid Stulemeijer

Valerie Wilson

Carol Fox

Kate Crane

Sue Davies

Kaz Boughton

Corrie Herriman

Kathi Rerek

Samantha Read

France Papillion

Roc Nicholas

Kristen Catalano

Nellie van Leeuwen

Arwen McCullen

Magda Polakow

Jackie Payne

Gez Butterworth

Hope you enjoy all the design team creations, 

we can't wait to hear what your favorite new stamps are!

SDC183: Happy Unbirthday!

France Papillion is our hostess this week at Stampotique Designer's Challenge and here's what she has to say about her challenge:

We often expect cards on our birthday.  How about surprising someone with an unbirthday card?  With our without Alice in Wonderland inspiration, make a happy unbirthday card.

For my card I went with a layout that was a little different for me with lots of angels.  I'm  usually a straight and narrow cardmaker.

I kept this pretty simple in terms of no texture on my solid cardstock and decided not to color the full hours but instead just add the party had which I paper pieced and then a few candy dots.

Hope you will join us for the challenge this week and your chance to win a $30 gift certificate for Stampotique stamps.

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Card details:

Stamps: 3036 Happy Unbirthday and 2408 Horse from Stampotique Originals

Cardstock: Real Red, Night of Navy, Crushed Curry, Soft Sky, Rustic White, Carta Bella Boy oh Boy

Inks: Memento Tuxedo Black, copic markers

Embellishments: Clear & Simple Stamps candy dots

SDC181: Citrus Colors

Sue Davies is our hostess this week over at Stampotique Designer's Challenge and she's got us thinking fruit:

"Ever since I was small I've loved the color yellow and the rest of the citrus colors.  They are just so fresh and always make me feel happy.  So, this week I want you to use citrus colors and spread the happiness!"

I created all weekend in between running errands and kids around-but had so much fun and this was probably one of my most favorite cards I created as the colors are a lot brighter than I'm used to doing.

I stamped  Baby Fleur 1 twice on my rustic white paper and then colored both of the sunflower heads.  I cut around one and popped it up using dimensionals.  I colored her little bathing suit with  my copic markers and then used my white signo gel pen to put polka dots on her bathing suit.

I wanted to add a few things to the card but decided not to add a sentiment but leave it blank at this time.  I cut some circles in various sizes and then added a candy dot to the center of them.

Hope you will jump over at join us with your citrus creation at Stampotique Designer's Challenge this week and your chance to win one of two $30 gift certificates for Stampotique stamps.

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Card details:

Stamps: 9143 Baby Fleur 1 by Stampotique Originals

Cardstock: Rustic White, Orange you Fabulous, Basic Black and Fancy Pants Nautical

Inks: Memento Tuxed Black and Copic Markers

Embellishments: circle punches, Stampin' Up! Candy dots

This calls for...

This is the last in my birthday card swap (although I'm posting them out of order).

Trying to utilize some of that patterned paper I've got stashed in my drawers and thought this SCS Sketch would work well with using some of it.  

I pulled out a favorite of mine, Zara's cupcake from Stampotique Originals for this cute birthday card.

Hard to tell in the photo but I applied some Crystal Lacquer on the cupcake frosting to make it look glazed a bit.

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Card details:

Stamps: 7307 Zara's cupcake from Stampotique Originals, Birthday Messages from Simon Says Stamp

Cardstock: Marina Mis, Whisper White, My Mind's Eye Life of the Party

Inks: Ranger Archival Ink in Jet Black

Embellishments: Basic Grey Candy Buttons

SDC180: Painted Background

Corrie Herriman is our hostess this week over at Stampotique Designer's Challenge and here is her challenge details:

Happy Wednesday everybody.  My first love in crafting is paint.  So, today I would like you all to use paint in your background.  Doesn't matter what paint or how you apply it, just have fun!

I was testing out my background painting and I'm still on the fence about this ATC I created.  I embossed the image in white embossing powder and then watercolored over it.

I wanted to add a cute little sentiment on this and then some embellishments by adding some candy dots.

Hope you will join us at Stampotique Designer's Challenge this week!

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Card details:

Stamps: 7045 Joyful and 9005 Happy Birthday by Stampotique Originals

Cardstock: Basic Black, watercolor paper

Inks: Archival Ink Jet Black

Embellishment: Candy dots

SDC179: Punny/Funny

Kathi Rerek is our hostess this week and her challenge over at Stampotique Designer's Challenge has us hitting our funny bone:

e.e. cummings said "The most wasted of all days is one without laughter." Puns and word play always make me smile.  Really good puns make me laugh.  Create a project that makes YOU smile.

This has always been a favorite stamp and sentiment of mine, so of course I had to break him out to use.

I utilized the Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge #251 for this card.   I did a lot of distressing and added a heart to my wood veneer piece to let the recipient know how much I carrot about them.

Hope you will join us over at Stampotique Designer's Challenge this week for your chance to win a $30 gift certificate for Stampotique stamps.

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Card details:

Stamps: 8988 I Carrot 'Bout You, 6092 Carrot, 12010 Hazel Heart (used the heart only) from Stampotique Originals

Cardstock: Crumb Cake, Early Espresso, Pumpkin Pie, Whisper White

Inks: Memento Tuxedo Black, copic markers

Embellishments: Wood veneer, dimensional glue