Paper Players Color Challenge 15

Ahhhh….doesn’t this lovely maple tree with all its beautiful colors evoke fond memories of fall, back-to-school, jumping in piles of leaves, cool, crisp mornings, stamping!!  What!?  Of course, stamping lends itself to EVERY season!  LOL!  Ann chose this lovely photo as her Paper Players color inspiration today, with these colors:  Old Olive, More Mustard, Cajun Craze, Early Espresso and Very Vanilla!!  I used Mercy’s sketch 90:

 

and SU’s Trendy Trees to make my fall-inspired card:

Truthfully, I can’t believe I did all those little cross-stitches on the side.  As much as I love cross-stitch, it is very challenging on cardstock!  But I persevered and I like the effect!!!  And that fun dotted paper is actually Christmas DP from Jolly Holiday!  To follow along the polka-dotted them, I ran all three strips of cardstock through my Perfect Polka Dots EF at one time, and the tag is from Lots of Tags die cuts.  My handy-dandy Stamp-a-ma-jig helped me line up my trees just where I wanted them!  I am thinking this would be a good masculine card, so I limited my embellishments to a single button.

I hope you’ll try your hand at this color combo, too!  You can find all the details at the Paper Players blog—even if you don’t have these exact colors, you can still play, and you don’t have to use SU stamps---anything is fine!  Can’t wait to see what you come up with!

• Stamps:  Trendy Trees, Occasional Quotes
• Paper:  Very Vanilla, Early Espresso, Cajun Craze, More Mustard, Old Olive, Jolly Holiday DP
• Ink:  Early Espresso, Cajun Craze, More Mustard, Old Olive
• Acc:  Nesties, Perfect Polka Dot EF; SAMJ, Needle & Crochet Thread, Button, Paper Piercer, Lots of Tags Die

Have a blessed day!

Two Pups, Two Sketches

Unfortunately, I had to make a pet sympathy card; my niece had to put her beloved Sully to sleep Sunday night due to a heat stroke.  She had gotten him when she was a senior in high school; her senior project was to train him for Canine Partners for Life, but early in training, it was discovered that he had diabetes, so rather than have him put down, my sister’s family adopted him.  So for the last six years, he led a wonderful life with the other menagerie at my sister’s house, running through the woods and fields and living a dog’s life.  Kelly spoiled him rotten!  Lately though, he had been having seizures, and Sunday was just too hot for him; the vet said it was best to put him down.  It was so sudden, no one had time to prepare, so it has been a sad week.  I pulled out Anna Wight’s Good Dog set and made this card, using Taylor’s sketch:

 

I flipped the sketch in order to face the dog inward; this really does NOT look like Sully (he was a Black lab) but I didn’t necessarily want it to remind her of him, but perhaps a doggie friend!! (Silly, I know!).  I chose to make a “frame” of SU’s new Poppy Parade, which matched the Max & Whiskers paper perfectly.  I really wanted that fun print to show through!  I distressed it using the direct-to-paper technique, just rubbing my Crumb Cake ink pad over the paper in a random pattern.  The scallops are in Close to Cocoa and Not Quite Navy.  I added some piercing and a couple little silver embellishments.

Since I had my Max & Whiskers paper already out, I decided to make another card; I must admit, this one went more quickly!  I used Mercy’s sketch:

and since I already had this dog image stamped from my last card (too big) I went ahead and used it on this one:

Really simple & easy!!  Aren’t those papers adorable?  It will be hard not to hoard these, they are so cute!  So thanks for visiting and don’t forget to stop back tomorrow for the CTD!

• Stamps:  Good Dog, Whippersnapper
• Paper:  Sahara Sand, Close to Cocoa, Not Quite Navy, Poppy Parade, WW, More Mustard, Max & Whiskers, Basic Grey
• Ink:  Memento Black, Soft Suede, Crumb Cake
• Acc:  Copics, Grosgrain & Satin ribbon, Scallop Trim Punch, Nesties, Paper Piercer, Silver Embellishments, Jumbo Scallop Punch, EK Success, Copics

Mercy Sketch 78

I had been itching to stamp this beautiful new hostess stamp in black ever since I saw it! When I saw Mercy’s sketch:

I knew it would be perfect! Doing this in black and vanilla may seem a little dull, but I think it’s elegant! I left the inside blank so I can add a sentiment that is appropriate for the occasion:

I used the new Newsprint DP as my background and simply stamped the image twice, once on the circle, and again to be fussy cut and popped up. The sentiment is from All Holidays. I wish I had some black taffeta ribbon, but I had to do with black grosgrain. Thanks for looking today!

• Stamps: Because I Care, All Holidays
• Paper: Basic Black, Very Vanilla, Newsprint DP
• Ink: Stazon
• Acc: Scallop Trim Punch, Circle Punches, Nesties, Grosgrain Ribbon, Dimensionals

Put Your Sunglasses On

I don’t know why, but for some reason lately, I am attracted to BRIGHT colors! The Flourishes blog has a challenge going on right now, to use black, white and one color. Barbara made a lovely card with a yellow accent, and I thought Melon Mambo would be equally as lovely:

Perhaps “lovely” is not the right word…..BOLD might be better! This bird from Always has probably never been stamped in such a hot color, at least not on my craft table! The City Crafter challenge this week is to make a wedding card, so I added the newlyweds sentiment from Teeny Tiny Wishes. I hope I can find a “modern” couple that will appreciate this card! I released my hoarding instinct and added lots of pearls from my stash, and maybe you can see that the circular panel was embossed with the Square Lattice EF. DP is the retired Night & Day paper; the tag embellishment is the Lots of Tags diecut, sponged with some white craft ink, as is the Leaves Sizzlet diecut. Oh, and I almost forgot; this card uses Mercy’s sketch for this week:

Thanks for visiting—have a blessed day!

things I love…

Well, this little card depicting ONE of the things I love took waaaay too long to make, but I won’t bore you with the details!  This is based on Jessica’s sketch for Mercy:

as well as the City Crafters Challenge #7 to use a button and bow.  Probably they were looking for something frilly, but today, I am not doing frilly!  The inspiration piece was a pretty turquoise, but since I did this last night at around 1 am (I guess that means it was THIS MORNING) I wasn’t in a frilly mood!  So here we go:

This is technically a gift card holder for some Tim Horton coffee that I know my friend Betsy enjoys!  She is not the frilly type, hence the unfrilly card!  But we BOTH enjoy coffee, so it was a card I enjoyed making!  LOL!  Anyway, the stamps are SU; paper is Cosmo Joy Ride……the button is there on top of the little punched heart:

My heart punch that would have matched these buttons has been lent out so I just used the mini one that SU had in their last mini catalog, which is still available.  The buttons are from there, too, as well as that cute little cuppa joe from Itty Bitty Bits that prances across the top panel!  It was stamped in Dusty Durango; card base is Close to Cocoa….another one to wave bye bye!  And the big sentiment is from Things I Love, which is NOT retiring!

I also wanted to share this ADORABLE card my friend Beth made for her mom, a Red-Hatter, to give to her fellow RHers, since she used Things I Love as well:

The feathers just send me over the edge---so stinkin’ cute!  And here’s the inside:

See that little shoe….cuuute!

Okay, that’s it for today….a busy weekend coming up but I hope to have a card to share tomorrow!  Have a blessed day!

Kathy’s Cat

After seeing so many cute cards, I finally broke down and got one of Kathy Martin’s little digital images.  Mercy’s sketch this week seemed perfect:

I added a sentiment to the inside of the panel, colored up the critters with my Copics and mounted it all on some cute Cosmo Cricket papers and a Ruby Red card:

I added a little diecut flower with a Build-a-Brad “top”, and some faux ribbon cut and crimped from the same Material Girl DP pad.  Sweet!

Thanks for visiting today!  

Two Sketches

I was lamenting to Robin Merriman this morning that there are so many sketches and challenges, and not enough time!  In between my cleaning today, I managed to make two cards using two challenges!  I already had the DP and the cards laying on my table, so I just went forward from there.  The first one is a new one for me, Unscripted Sketches.  Here’s the sketch:

and here’s the card:

The inside says “Happy Birthday”; I was too lazy to retake the bad photo of it!  And here’s Mercy’s sketch for this week:

and the card:

I used a various assortment of stamp images, some Nesties, bling, punches and ribbon.  Hope you enjoy them! 

It is about 90 degrees here today---more like Florida in the spring than Pennsylvania!  I am not quite ready to bring out the shorts, but I am considering it!!  A side note, also; I have having issues opening anyone’s blog who uses Typepad (among a few others).  My techie guy is going to look into it over the weekend, but I was wondering if anyone else was having problems.  It is the same with DH’s computer, so I am thinking it is something on the server’s end.  Unfortunately, I am not computer-savvy!!!  So, forgive me for not commenting if I am a regular visitor, but I can’t get to your blog to comment! 

• Stamps:  Waltzingmouse, Simon Says Stamp, There She Goes
• Paper:  Apricot Appeal, Chocolate Chip, Cameo Coral, Regal Rose, Hostess Prints Pack, misc DP
• Ink:  Apricot Appeal, Chocolate Chip, Cameo Coral, Regal Rose
• Acc:  Nesties, retired SU Ribbon, Bling, Jumbo Bird Punch, Scallop Trim Punch, Dimensionals

A Flower for Mimi

Happy Friday, everyone! DH & I were away for a couple of days, so it is good to be home and back in my stamp room! My SIL’s birthday is Sunday; I just finished her card this afternoon, so guess what—it’s going to be LATE! Oh well! I chose a stamp set that I haven’t used for a while, Flowers for Daisy, by Asela Hopkins, and incorporated it into Mercy’s Sketch #66, shown here:

I stamped the image twice, colored them with SU markers, and popped up the second flower at an angle to the first one---I love the effect! Some Pink Flamingo DP gave me the color inspiration, and since the Stampin’ Royalty challenge this week is to use glitter, I added some DD to the center of my flower to glitz it up a bit! You can see it better here:

Thanks for stopping by today!

Mercy & Color Challenges

You will all be sick of me—three posts in one day!!  I haven’t played the SCS color challenge for a while, so I decided to combine it with Mercy’s sketch for this week:

I combined Fresh Cuts and Vintage Vogue for this busier-than-usual card using Rich Razzleberry, Old Olive & Orchid Opulence:

I used a couple techniques for this card; first, the Fresh Cuts image was embossed with clear EP, but since I don’t have any Rich Razzleberry CRAFT ink, I inked my stamp in Versamark first, then inked right over top with the RR ink.  Once the image was stamped on the paper, I covered it with clear EP, brushed off the excess and heated with my heat tool!  Then I used the Emboss Resist technique, coloring the flowers and leaves with a more intense watercolor, and flooding the background with a lighter watercolor.  I colored the word “friends” with a marker and punched it with a small oval punch and embellished it with a flower & leaf.  My final touch was a couple of Little Leaves cut with the Big Shot, stamped with the Fresh Cuts words and tucked behind the “F”.  This is going to a special person who won some blog candy!  I hope she enjoys it.   If you have any questions about any of these products, let me know!!

Grungy Curtain

Ha!  I’ll bet that title got your attention!!! LOL!  This card is for Mercy’s sketch#61 and Stacey's Curtain Call Color Challenge Act 17:

 

 

 

 

 

I rarely make boy cards, even though I have three boys in my immediate family!! Girl cards are just more fun!  But this Extreme Guitar image was available with a $50 purchase during Sale-a-bration, so I thought it would be good for future use!  So I inked it up for today’s card, grunge-style, and came up with this:

(The More Mustard panel here looks  like Pumpkin Pie, but honestly, it’s not!!)  I have to admit, this was a fun sketch, and I got to use lots of different images from different stamp sets!  The guitar player was inked in More Mustard, then I dabbed the edge of my Chocolate Chip pad on top.  Each piece was also overstamped with the Sanded background stamp.  I can’t wait to try this sketch again with another image!  Thanks for visiting today!

• Stamps:  Sanded, Extreme Guitar, Boho Backgrounds, Circle Circus, A to Z, All Holidays
• Paper:  Going Gray, Very Vanilla, So Saffron, More Mustard, Chocolate Chip
• Inks:  Going Gray, So Saffron, More Mustard, Chocolate Chip
• Acc:  Oval Nesties, Star Punch, 1/16” Punch, Silver Brads, Sponge Daubers, Dimensionals