Just Us Girls #98 - Color Challenge

Hi all!  This week's challenge over at Just Us Girls is a color challenge.  The lovely Elise has given us these beautiful colors to work with.

I used this image from SU's Forever Young stamp set as my focal point.  It's stamped in chocolate chip ink then fussy cut and popped up with dimensionals.  The sentiment is from My Time Made Easy's Sign It stamp set.  The paper is Origins from Basic Grey and the sketch is this month's Sketch for You to Try.  Love these colors together!

The girls have knocked it out of the ball park once again.  You can see them on the JUGs blog and you can visit them on their personal blogs.

Andrea

Dana

Elise

Kathryn

Maria

Pam

Thanks for stopping by!  Have a great Saturday!

Just Us Girls - Technique Challenge

***You can see my Christmas Stampin' All Year Long post here.***

Hi everyone! I'm on the computer today catching up on posts and commenting! I've been so bad lately and I apologize for that. Too little time to get everything done at this time of the year!This week over at Just Us Girls, we have a great technique challenge that made my jaw drop when I first saw it a while ago! I have always wanted to try it! Pam is our fabulous hostess, and she has chosen the woodgrain technique that Gina K illustrates on her Stamp TV video. It's a super easy technique that gives you that instant "wow" factor! I did the technique as Gina illustrates using More Mustard cardstock, however I used Adirondack's Snow Cap white pigment ink and a cheap $1 chocolate brown dye based ink pad. (I didn't want to ruin a good brown ink pad!) While I chose to use a brown ink pad, some of the girls chose different colors, like blue, to get a white washed wood feel. The image is from SU's retired For Father stamp set, and the sentiment is one I've had forever from Stacy's Stamps (I purchased it at a stamp show). I used a decorative corner punch and added brown brads. I wanted to keep it simple so you could get the full view of the woodgrain effect I created (plus I stink at making masculine cards cause you can't add ribbons and flowers!).

I hope you can stop by the Just Us Girls blog and see what the girls have created. You can also see what our guest designer Rosemary Dennis has created!

Thanks for stopping by today! Have a great weekend!

Happy Birthday Dad - Featured Stamper Challenge

Happy Sunday everyone! I didn't intend to participate in the Featured Stamper challenge over on SCS today, but I took a peek at Jellybean74's gallery and came across a card I wanted to CASE for my FIL's birthday. I hate making masculine cards, because I'm just not good at it. I NEED inspiration. I did, however, intend to use SU's Lovely as a Tree set. My girlfriend gave hers to me (she doesn't stamp anymore) and it wasn't even mounted! When I was peeking at the FS gallery, I came across this card and it is where my inspiration took me.I hate CASEing almost exactly, but I just had to! I used the same tree (it was perfect, so why bother changing it?), but stamped it in River Rock. The dp is similar, but mine is Pyrus from Basic Grey. I matted it with River Rock cardstock. The sentiment is from two Papertrey Ink sets: Men of Life and Father Knows Best. The ribbon is River Rock and I added a piece of Hodgepodge Hardware in aged copper.

The inside was kept simple. I used 1" squares and mounted them like diamonds, similar to the front. The sentiments again are from the same two Papertrey sets.

My FIL is a great guy and a great father. He's almost blind from glaucoma and I have never once heard him complain. He has been in pain quite a few times from the pressure building up behind his cornea. I worry about him when he's walking up and down steps, but he just yells at me and says, "What? I'm fine!" Men! LOL!!

Thanks for stopping by today. Enjoy your day!

Recipe
Stamps: Lovely as a Tree (SU), Men of Life and Father Knows Best (PTI)
Paper: Vintage cream, river rock, Pyrus dp (Basic Grey)
Ink: Chocolate chip, river rock
Accessories: Nesties, river rock ribbon, hodgepodge hardware, dimensionals

Fill Your Day with Joy

Happy Sunday! Today, my niece Maria is making her confirmation and I am her sponsor. I wanted to make her a special card, of course. I bought her a cross charm for her Pandora bracelet, so I needed a little package to present it in. Luckily, this week's JUGs challenge is a template challenge, and we used My Time Made Easy's Tuck-ered Out template. It was a perfect fit for the little Pandora box.

Maria loves green, so I tried to incorporate that as much as possible. I used the retired dp from SU called Afternoon Tea for the box, which has some pretty Wild Wasabi green in it. I paired it with a pretty ribbon from Michael's. I chose to use SU's retired set Symbols of Salvation and Taylored Expressions sketch for her card.

The dp coordinates with SU's Soft Sky and Wild Wasabi colors. I ran the wasabi piece through a Sizzix folder and used a piece of Soft Sky for the scallops. I had a difficult time trying to find a senitment for the occasion, but found this great one in PTI's Year of Flowers: Sweet Peas set. I made it into a banner and swirled some Soft Sky ink around it. I love this new Spellbinder's die and how it looks with the Soft Sky ink swirled around it while the paper was still in the die. It looks so dainly and like a doily. The image is colored with copics on the new X-press It Blending cardstock from Copic. The colors apply like a dream on it! I finished it off with some green bling.

You can check out these little boxes on the JUGs blog and you can purchase them at My Time Made Easy. Sneaks for the MTME October release start on Wednesday, and I'll have a fabulously delicious project to share with you! Thanks for stopping in today!

Recipe
Stamps: Symbols of Salvation (SU), Year of Flowers: Sweet Pea (PTI)
Paper: Neenah white, X-press It , soft sky, wild wasabi, Afternoon Tea (SU)
Ink: Memento tuxedo black, soft sky
Copic Markers: Y0000, 000, 00, 02, 15;YR23, 24; BG01, 10; E35
Accessories: Nesties, bling, star dust stickles, dimensionals