The Flower Challenge #20 Reminder

It's the middle of the month already and time for some inspiration from the Design Team at The Flower Challenge.

You must use either acetate or vellum on your card with the focus on flowers.  Here's what I did.

I heat embossed on linen vellum the floral background from CASual Fridays.  The flowers from CF were also heat embossed in white and colored with Distress Inks.  I usually place my flowers in a corner for some reason but decided to break out of that rut and I'm glad I did. 

Thanks for dropping by.  Please be sure to check out the wonderful cards using acetate or vellum that the Design Team have made.  You still have time to enter your own creation in the gallery.

Inkspirational #190

It's purple and gold at Inkspirational.  A very regal combination I do believe.  My colors are a little more muted.

I did the alcohol ink background a while ago and added a popped up frame of Plum Pudding which matched perfectly.  Gold and purple foil were die cut into a dragonfly (with a little purple vellum under the wings) and flower and a sentiment added in black.

ETA: I keep forgetting about the challenge at The Cat's Pajamas.  This month they are asking for die cutting so I'm going to sent this card to them. 

I hope you all had a wonderful Mother's Day.

Addicted to CAS #136

The code word for this challenge at Addicted to CAS was chosen by Ceal.

Since I lost my Mom two years ago I haven't made any Mother's Day cards and I don't usually send them to my daughter and daughters-in-law but this year may be the exception.

I started with a die from AliExpress. I stamped and embossed in silver the sentiment from Altenew and popped it up on foam.  The roses are from WPlus9.  I stamped a whole bunch of them one day and keep them in the stamp folder so they are ready at a moment's notice.  I need to do some in other colors too.

The Design Team has some wonderful cards for you to see over on the blog.  We hope it inspires you to enter a card.  The winner will receive a $20 voucher to Happy Little Stampers.

Just Us Girls #440 - Trend Week

It's Trend Week, stampers, and Angie has chosen Stencils as the challenge for Just Us Girls this week.

I have my fair share of stencils so the dilemma was which one to use.  I picked one that is new to me that I won from Sarah at Funky Fossil Designs.

I inked the stencil with Peacock Feathers DI then trimmed the panel down.  I made a little arrangement of Altenew Painted Flowers and added a heat embossed sentiment from HA.

The Design Team and our guest designer Patti Kehl have some fabulous cards to inspire you to get out your stencils and make a card for the gallery.  If you are chosen Chic of the Week, you have a chance of being our guest designer in July.

The Card Concept #92

Any time there is a challenge featuring a flower I am inspired to join in.  The bold bloom at The Card Concept caught my attention and here is the result.

I started with the flower from Altenew stamped in shades of red.  I wanted to mimic the slats in the blinds so I stamped the MFT pinstripe background in HA Wet cement.  I used the same ink for my leaves and a similar color to heat emboss the sentiment on.  All that was left was a panel to place the flower on and I went with a quilt embossing folder. 

It's physical therapy this afternoon for a neck problem and then my daughter arrives tonight to spend Mother's Day weekend with me while her husband goes further north to spend the weekend with his mother and dad.  I think Lisa has an outing planned which will include some shopping and dining.  And of course a lot of  sharing and laughing. Plus I just got a text from my granddaughter-in-law that she and my grandson have sent a package of goodies for us to share.  I'm one lucky lady.

Thanks for dropping by.  I hope you all have a great weekend and if you are a grandmother, mother, sister, aunt or mentor then you are truly blessed.

Merry Monday #289

It's funny how sometimes code words or themes run through challenges.  I did a card with stars for one challenge and now Merry Monday is asking for a star. 

I got these layered stars on Amazon and decided to cut them from Neenah metallic papers, using two of the four colors in the pack on the star and one for the background.  The sentiment from MCS is embossed in platinum.  It's a pretty QACAS card (quick and clean and simple) and looks much better IRL.

Thanks for dropping by.

CAS Christmas Challenge

I loved the little snowman from Penny Black and even though he is a wood stamp I bought him anyway.  He's perfect for the CAS Christmas Challenge.

I paper pieced him with DSP and glitter paper, popped him up on a ragged cut panel and one that has snowflakes embossed on it.  The sentiment is also from PB, popped up over the one that got a little embossing powder on it and was difficult to read. 

Thanks for dropping by.  I love it when you do.

Addicted to Stamps and More #291

Here it is, stampers.  Your favorite Addicted to Stamps and More challenge.

I wanted to try a new technique for my card - ink lifting. 

Step one.  Heat emboss the flowers from Altenew on Bristol cs.  Step two.  Ink the panel with Abandoned Coral Distress Oxide.  Step three.  Apply water to the images to remove ink. Some I took away with the paint brush and some I blotted with paper towel.  Step four.  Stand back and be amazed. ;)  Step five.  Add sentiment.  I tripled layered the SSS die using shimmer cs for the top layer.

The Design Team has some wonderful cards for you to see over on the blog, hoping to inspire you to join the challenge.

CAS(E) This Sketch #270

It's another retro sketch at CAS(E) This Sketch this week.  I love to look back and see how far I've come with new stamps, stencils and techniques.  A stencil from CPD is what I used for #270.

I used Twisted Citron and Cracked Pistachio Distress Inks and Minty Mint from Altenew.  I found paper of similar color and layered them along with gray for the die cut sentiment, offsetting so a little bit of each shows.

Here's the sketch

and my original card.

This one is a lot more literal.  I've come a long way in that department too.

I'm so glad you dropped by.  Have a wonderful day.

Fusion - Pink Phone

Whenever I win a challenge I've made it my policy to enter the next challenge.  Since I won at Fusion with this card, I quickly made one for their newest challenge.

I must admit the flowers, both from WPlus9, were already stamped and ready to go.  A slip of linen vellum covers the gray striped paper from PB.

Thanks for dropping by.  I hope your week got off to a good start.

AAA Cards #114

A Tic Tac Toe challenge gives you many options for a card.  Here's the board for this week's AAA Cards.

I went with the diagonal from bottom left to upper right - flowers, one layer, colored cardbase. 

Using gray tone paper I stamped the PB flowers in Onyx Black and colored with my PolyChromos pencils.  After the coloring was done I restamped in the black.  In this instance I think it looked better before I did that.  The sentiment is from My Pink Stamper. 

I need to send this card out.  Our neighbor lady who has always been so good to us, furnishing us with pies and cookies and vegetables when she still had her garden, passed away last week and her funeral was yesterday.  Her daughter asked Ken to be a pall bearer and I will send this card to her.  She also happens to be best friends with Ken's SIL so we had a little family reunion at the luncheon following the service. Both Ken's brother Larry and wife Sharon have multiple health problems and so we don't see them often.  It was good to have some time to catch up even under those circumstances.

After that we went to CMU to see my granddaughters while they were moving out of their college residences.  Even though my son said they didn't need help, they really did so I'm glad we could be there.  I also got to find out their plans for the summer and was glad to hear they are both looking forward to spending time with us at the lake. 

Thanks for dropping by today.  I hope your busyness still affords you some crafty time.

Just Us Girls #439 - Word Week

Sue is the host for Word Week at Just Us Girls and this is her word:

You can see in the explanation the various way to interpret this word.  I chose to do shadow stamping.

I stamped the leaves from Altenew's Build a Flower Hibiscus in white on Smoke cs and then stamped offset in Fog.  It took me several tries to get the offset right and I didn't always get the shadow on the same side on this finished one but I didn't want to do it over - again.  These are the same leaves that are part of the focal point of my card.  They look entirely different in four shades of green.  I added three of those little drops that I have had forever and never use.  The one on the bottom is sort of hiding a little boo boo.

The Design Team and our guest designer Karren Johnson have some fabulous cards to inspire you and we hope you'll make a shadow card to enter in the gallery.  If you are chosen Chic of the Week you could be a future guest.

Happy Little Stampers Christmas - May

I can't believe it's May already and time for a new challenge at Happy Little Stampers Christmas.  This time the challenge is Anything Goes with the option of stars.

I went with the option.

The stars are from CPD and were heat embossed in white.  I tore a piece of copy paper for a mask at the bottom and inked a night sky with Distress Inks, then used the paper to make a few drifts in the snow.  Santa (from the same CPD set) and the sentiment from EbyE were stamped in Onyx Black.

The HLS Design Team has some wonderful cards for you to see.  Why not check them out and then make a card for the gallery.  You may win a $20 GC from HLS.

Less Is More #370

It's a sketch challenge over at Less Is More.  Here's the sketch:

And here's my card:

I used Zigs to watercolor the daisies from Altenew and popped up the two largest ones.

Short post today but I'm glad you dropped by to see what I've been doing.

The Flower Challenge #20

The new challenge is up at The Flower Challenge and this time we want you to use acetate or vellum on your card.

I chose vellum for mine
I used linen vellum cut with a N&T die for my background, heat embossing variety of Altenew flowers in one corner.  I had some light yellow and green vellum that I used for a flower from TH and Altenew leaves,  adding a little extra color with Zigs.  I got a smudge in the upper right corner so I covered it with one of the leaves.  The sentiment, also from Altenew, was stamped in Expresso and heat embossed in clear. 

The Design Team, and our guest designer Gwendolyn have some wonderful cards waiting to inspire you on the blog.  Why not take a look and then make a card for the challenge.  We'd love to see your flowers using acetate or vellum.

CASology #298

Wouldn't you know I had just done a jungle card for another challenge when CASology decided to have a jungle challenge.  At first I was going to use my jungle birds but remembered I had another stamp set that would work and I had already colored the image.

Isn't that SSS koala adorable?  I put him on an embossed background that kind of looks like he's in the trees picking eucalyptus.  The sentiment is from the same set. I cut my own speech bubble and turned this into a valentine.

Thanks for dropping by today.  I always enjoy reading your comments.

Merry Monday #288

No stamps!  Gasp!  Whatever will I do for the challenge at Merry Monday.  Die cuts it is and one I've long neglected.

Not too bad of a photo.  You all know how difficult it is to take pictures of foil.  I used the negative and positive of this SSS tree and then cut the accompanying sentiment from red foil and layered it on two of white.  In retrospect I should have done all red layers.

I'm glad you dropped by.  Have a wonderful day.