Made in the Shade!

I was invited by my friend and stamper extraordinaire, Taylor, to make a sample for this week's Splitcoaststampers' Sketch Challenge. Here's what it looks like...definitely a challenge, don't you think?!  Especially if you are like I am and have the tendency to interpret sketch challenges rather literally.

For a couple of days I kept looking at the layout, hoping to come up with an idea...then, finally (at the 11th hour, which is typically the way it works for me) I made a clean and simple design using Debbie Corbari's Tree-rific Trees from Our Craft Lounge.

Maybe you're wondering why the tree is upside down?!  I hope not! Our front yard has a graceful, arching oak tree with moss-laden limbs that overhang the lawn, and as you sit in the shade and look up through its branches at the sky, the view is very much like this! Even the cardinal (and squirrels, too!)

Here's what the inside of my card looks like...just in time for Earth Day on Sunday, April 22, 2012!

Notes:
Tree-rific Trees from Our Craft Lounge
Memento Tuxedo Black ink, Dew Drops
Copic markers
Zva pearls
scalloped circle punched from copy paper for masking the sky

Tweet Thang!

I am so happy that I actually got to play today's SCS sketch!  I am really lovin' my new Our Craft Lounge sets, and this little birdie is a real cutie!  This set, Tweet Thang, has lots of adorable images and fun sentiments.

This particular image was one that I had colored as I was preparing for a class I'm teaching this weekend at Priceless Scrapbooks in Ocala.  I had colored two using my Copics, and for the card I'm teaching I preferred the brighter look without the background shading...so this one got set aside and gave me a head start on today's card.  To fit the sketch I added a nesties square panel stamped with a sentiment and a little butterfly.  Love the colors of this Basic Grey Kioshi designer paper, and that olive herringbone ribbon!  I clipped some Zva swirlies apart to make 'em fit the way I wanted for a little butterfly trail.  I'm tempted to take my multiliner and draw in a few little birdie song notes!

This was a fun sketch and I am sure I'll try it again!

NoBunny like you!

Today's challenge at Splitcoaststampers is a fun sketch that is just perfect for using up scraps of designer paper! This adorable bunny is one of my current favorite Spring stamp sets (Hoppin' into Spring)...I just love coloring images like this with my Copic markers!  Kate is expecting this Our Craft Lounge set (recently released at CHA) to be arriving at i {heart} papers any day now!

It was early (about 6:30, and still pretty dark outside) when I was working on this card...looking at it now, the Cameo Coral looks a little bright for the rest of the colors in the scraps of Cosmo Cricket Nutmeg designer paper that I used, but it's all already glued together now, so I'm stickin' with the original plan! ;) I'll probably work on another card using this image soon, because at noon today my box from i {heart} papers arrived, and it had two more new packs of Cosmo Cricket paper (Garden Variety and Joy Ride)along with some new stamps!  Can't wait to play some more!  The Garden Variety 6 x 6 pad has a CARROT-printed paper that will be so cute with this guy!

I kept this card exactly to the sketch, and embellished sparingly, using only this great velvet corduroy ribbon with a little Junkitz ribbon buckle that I've been hoarding forever for just the right project!  Happy to finally use it!

More Notes:

• Memento Rich Cocoa ink
• Nestability small and large rectangles

Petal Press Release

Today is the day that all of us at i {heart} papers have been waiting for! Our very own design team coordinator, Tracy Schultz, has illustrated her first stamp set for her brand new stamp line, The Petal Press, and it is finally available! Join me in congratulating Tracy for this dream-come-true experience. Her set is a really fun Fall build-a-scene and I had a great time coloring it as part of my card for today's SCS sketch challenge! I used a combination of Copic markers and Prismas with Gamsol (see the Copic Creations Challenge for this week!). I'm happy with how my pumpkin turned out but not totally pleased with the shadow in the background (first time I used this pencil!). The Harvest Hayride paper was a great backdrop for this image. I matted the nesties oval cut image with a bit of cardstock embossed with a herringbone EF, then sponged all the edges with Tim Holtz distress ink.

I love Tracy's set and can't wait to play with some of the other images. It's very versatile and can be used for holidays and everyday from October through December. In addition to Tracy's new release, i {heart} papers is also releasing two new Chickengirl sets today! Kate has been adding new product to the store on a nearly daily basis...so it is a good idea to visit often!

i {heart} papers hail and farewell!

It is both a sad and exciting day for our i {heart} papers design team. We are bidding a fond farewell to two members of our inaugural design team, Kendra Wietstock and Sarah Anderson. They are absolutely amazing stampers, with abundant amazing creativity and personality plus! We are going to miss them tremendously!

The rest of us have the wonderful good fortune to welcome the fabulous Lynn Mercurio to our team! Lynn is of SCS fame as she hosts the popular Technique Lover's Challenges on Mondays. Her most recent *hat* to wear is that of editor-in-chief of Stamp TV's Stamping Lifestyles online magazine. Lynn has been part of our team behind the scenes for a while now, so we are excited to finally publicly welcome her and look forward to seeing what she will do with the great products that are available in the ihp online store.

The card I'm sharing with you today is from yesterday's SCS Sketch Challenge. It features the fun Just Bugz set from ihp (by Our Craft Lounge). I stamped the bee on white cardstock, colored it with Copic markers, glitzed its wings up with clear Spica glitter. I used a scrap of BoBunny's designer paper edge punched with a Martha Stewart punch for the horizontal panel, and yellow Bazill cardstock as an accent. The bee was placed on dimensionals atop several layers of punched circles. A little *Faith-dot* border around the edges, and a bow of black and yellow gingham pulled the design together.

Make sure to take a look at the other ihp designers' blogs as they farewell Kendra and Sarah and welcome Lynn! At i {heart} papers Kate is offering a 10% discount on all purchases starting today and running only through this Saturday, May 2nd, so the time to shop is NOW! The discount code for this discount is HGB10 (HGB is short for Hello & Good-Bye).

ATC + Sketch=

a cute card! Or at least I hope you think so!

I just love these Caring Critters! This set was illustrated by Jami Bova for 2RedBananas.

You may have already seen the ATC I made for last Thursday's WT challenge. When I saw today's sketch with only 30 minutes to craft before I had to leave for Bible study, I instantly thought of this little ATC as a head start to today's card. The darling bunny was already colored and shaded with Copic markers, cut out, waiting and ready too. His cute little tail sparkles with Spica clear glitter. All I had to do was assemble the card base and attach the separate elements. Sounds easy enough right? Wellll....LOL! I think I spent most of my 30 minutes searching through my stash trying to find my sticker sheet of Kaiser pink pearls! It wasn't where it was supposed to be! :p

This card is a 5.5 inch square card cut from Pink Pirouette, layered with Baja Breeze. The floral background of Imaginisce Love is in the Air is accented with the companion stripe, Weak in the Knees. All the edges of the paper were distressed and lightly inked with Old Olive. The ATC and bunny were positioned with dimensionals and pop dots, and those elusive pearls finally found their way onto the top left corner!

To post...

...or not to post? That is the question! LOL!

Do you ever work on a card for a while and just get more and more frustrated as the minutes tick by...and when you're finished you're not so happy with it but feel that you've spent so much time on it that you have to do something with it?! Well, this is one of *those* cards! Hopefully it isn't that it is so bad...it's just that I've grown tired of looking at it already! Sometimes it is good to walk away and try again later!

I wanted to make a more elegant St. Patrick's Day card, so I started with the poem from the set, Luck of the Irish, and a sheet of Sugardrop paper, both from i {heart} papers. I sponged the paper edges with River Rock ink and backed it with black...one of my all-time favorite color combos (I loved River Rock SO much and hated to see it retire). I stamped the small clover twice and punched them out with a 1/2 inch circle punch, then adhered them to build-a-brads to accent each horizontal element of the design.

I was pretty happy with things up to that point. I played around with several options for an accent for the bottom of the focal image because without something there it felt a little naked, and that was the part that got me frustrated. Finally I settled on a harmonizing prima...it isn't exactly what I was hoping for but was the best the options I had available...and now I'm just hoping that the look is gonna grow on me. We'll see!

Not Quite for the Holidays Anymore!

At times I really enjoy making fancy cards, but sometimes I just want something relatively clean and simple that is quick and easy to make, where the image gets the focus and there's no fuss! That's what today's card is. Very often for cards like this I will use a familiar simple layout too...in this instance I based my card loosely on SCS SC186.

Kate at i {heart} papers challenged our design team to use some Christmas designer paper to make a birthday or Valentine's Day card. I bought a lot of the different Wassail prints back in December and have quite a few scraps left. I thought this Winterberry print would work perfectly for this challenge so long as I kept the scale small enough to cover up the snowflakes. What do you think?! Did I pull it off successfully?

I love this potted hearts plant from the Hero Arts set, Many Hearts. It is a great Valentine image that works well for every-day too. I stamped it in Palette Noir ink on the solid side of a scrap of Snowdust paper, then colored it using prismas and baby oil. I have a 42-color set and had to layer in the colors to get the green I wanted. A band of May Arts ribbon covered up those Christmas snowflakes, and I laid in a few red Kaiser pearls to dress up the corners of the mat, cut from the flip side of the Winterberry.

It was actually kinda fun to use Christmas colors in the hopes that this card would not look like Christmas at all! I'm dedicating this card to my brother Jerry whose birthday is December 22, and to all of the other close-to-a-holiday birthday babies whose celebrations get lost in the shuffle, including my fellow ihp DT mates Cathleen (Christmas Day!) and Kendra (New Year's Eve!)!

Kate just started running some i {heart} papers ads over at Split Coast Stampers, so keep an eye out for them. Be sure to take advantage of the 10% off sale happening all weekend long! You have to spy the ad to grab the discount code, which is valid through Sunday. Have fun!

Life is a Gift!

I just love this sentiment in the new Treehouse Stamps set, Butterfly Kisses. With all that has been happening lately, I definitely am feeling that life IS a gift! Everything has been so wonderful since the end of October! I have loved every minute of my design team experience with these 3 wonderful teams that I am stamping for, and there are other opportunities on the horizon, so I am feeling quite blessed! And very extremely grateful!

Today's card is made with some glittery paper from DCWV glitter pack. I love these fun girlie colors! I stamped the butterflies with corresponding inks and blinged all their dots. I wanted it to have a light, airy, care-free mood to go along with this great sentiment. I hope you like it!

Sweet Hearts

I missed yesterday's sketch challenge, so I combined it with today's WT challenge, to layer embellishments. The bonus for me is that it also qualifies for Chrissy's Belli Challenge this week, to use hearts.

This Basic Grey Bittersweet 6 x 6 paper is so gorgeous! Every print in the pack is yum! I used my nesties to cut a scalloped mat for the focal image, a fun swirly cup of hearts from Impression Obsession's Sweet Hearts, which was stamped with Palette Burnt Umber ink and colored with prismas and baby oil. Then I punched some leaves with Martha Stewart fern punch to layer with a Heidi Swapp flower (why do pinks and reds freak my camera out?! It actually matches IRL.)

On top of the flower I layered an acrylic heart which was tied with pink taffeta ribbon...the heart was part of a fabulous stash of paper-crafting tools, papers and trinkets that my mom gave me for Christmas. I dangled a lock from the bow as I tied it, then dangled the key from some ribbon on the opposite side of the image. I used a clear Spica glitter pen to give the hearts and cup a little sparkle...so pretty and feminine!

Late Sketch--What Was I Thinking?

Do you ever really struggle with a card? Here's a Sweet 'n Sassy Cozy Feathered Friends card that I started on Wednesday for the SCS sketch challenge, and wrestled with off and on for days! I just love this little birdie, and started out painting him thinking I'd use some of my new Ambrosia paper. Then when I was done, the paper seemed *off* for the image, so I struggled forever trying to find a plan B. Then, after deciding to try to give him some little feathers, my white gelpen died and I had to resort to a ghost writer. Finally I arrived at this, which isn't making me happy but I'm posting it anyway!

It's time for the SNSS blog hop, so don't miss the chance to see some fabulous cards and win some blog candy!

Two other reminders before you go...the i {heart} papers Black Friday sale is still going on! And you still have lots of opportunities to enter Paper Craft Planet's 12 Days of Christmas! Here's my entry for today's challenge, to use a dove or turtle on your card...I used a scrap of leftover Basic Grey DP to make this 4.25 square card using Pink Poison's Faith, Hope and Love dove. This set was a gift from Faith (Markie's Mom) when I went to her retreat in October. Thanks so much Faith...I love this set!

What a fun sketch today!

I am such a symmetrical person (often to my dismay) that sketches like this are easier for me to embrace than some others!

Everything that I used today I have had in my stash forevah! So glad to use it to make something fun. The stamp was from the sale bin at Hobby Lobby, the paper from a huge stack my mother bought for me years ago! All the cardstock is from Stampin' Up! The only thing that is relatively new is that pretty Martha Stewart snowflake punch...it's a new favorite lately.

Just a reminder to scroll down if you haven't already...there's blog candy still up for grabs here and at several of my i {heart} papers DT mates' blogs. Cruise around to see our Give Thanks challenge posts and find your chance to win at their blogs too!