Just a Note

Happy weekend everyone! I'm so glad you took a moment to stop to see what I have made for this week's Our Creative Corner challenge. This week it's a complex challenge: colors black and white with texture and a bonus - sentiment only, no stamped image. So here is what I came up with. I had planned on doing a sentiment only, but somehow I gravitated toward this silhouette set from Stampin' Up! I think it is so cool to do positive and negative with this set. I decided against dry embossing which would have added a lot of texture because the DP is so busy. I think it has plenty of texture without embossing. The image panels are popped up on craft foam, the vintage corners were cut from cardboard and embossed with black EP so they are thick, plus the pearls add texture. The vintage corners are a Cuttlebug die, the image panels were cut with Spellbinders Labels 3 dies. the DP is from a digital company I recently discovered - Pink Petticoat. The black image was stamped with Mememto Tuxedo Black and the white with SU white kraft ink and then embossed with white detail EP. The white EP gives sort of an orange peel texture which I don't dislike, but is a little different. A Martha Stewart border punch was used to create the paper lace that runs diagionally. The white and black pearls are from Kaiser.

Did you notice that I didn't stitch or distress this card? Quite a departure from my normal style, but I thought it was busy enough without stitching and I didn't distress because I wanted the sharp contrast of the black and white.

Here are the design team members for Our Creative Corner along with a link to their blogs. I hope you will take the time to stop by and let them know how much you enjoy their work.

♥Wendy Jensen♥Dana Grothaus♥Diane Gilbert♥Jennifer Meyer♥Jocelyn Turner

♥Julie LeBlanc♥Loretta Lock♥Sarah Gough♥Lori Rider♥

Be sure to stop by Our Creative Corner and enter your black and white with texture card in this week's challenge. I'm looking foward to seeing what you have made!

Thanks again for stopping by. Wishing you all a wonderful Memorial Day weekend if you are celebrating it and for all others have a happy and safe weekend too!

Note: A reader asked which SU set this is. It's an old, old set called Vintage Postard.

Blessings & hugs,

Challenges entered:

One Stop Craft Challenge - Swirls and pearls

Speedy the Cat's Friends Challenge - Make a silhouette card

A Fairy Fun Friday Inspiration Challenge

Good morning and welcome back once again on this Fairy Fun Friday. I'm so glad you dropped in to see what I have made for this week's challenge because I really love the way this one came out and was excited to share it with you. Please stop by the challenge blog to check out the inspiration and what the other designers have to offer. When you look at what the others have done, you will see that I was the only one who intrepeted the bright color in the inspiration photo as red. Everyone else used orange. I guess because red is my favorite color that I just automatically saw red when I looked at the photo.

We'd love to have you stop by the blogs of the other designers and leave them some love too! Here's the line up:

♥Lori♥Corry♥Kelly♥Margreet♥Suzi♥Viv♥Hege-Annie♥Ann♥Lisa♥Tonya♥
Terry♥Carla♥Trisha, Guest DT♥

This is my first attempt at using the distress inks to watercolor. I haven't watercolored much in the past so I am encountering a learning curve, but I am reasonably happy with the way this one turned out. It was my second attempt. With the first try, I didn't let the piece dry long enough between colors and I had some bleeding/running together of the colors. The image is a digital image from The Prairie Fairy. (As a side note, Roberta is coming out with some fabulous new images, one of which she has used on her DT card today.) I wanted to start watercoloring digis, but one of the problems I have had with digis is that when I apply the watercolor the printer ink runs. Roberta came up with a wonderful fix for that issue. (See her post here.) Using the gray tone helps prevent the running problems AND looks so much more natural. I printed my image with light gray lines and used Tim Holtz distress inks to color it.

I used this week's Mojo Mondays sketch, Very Vanilla CS with Antique Linen sponging/distressing. I don't know who made the bottom layer of DP because a friend gave me a few sheets of DP that she didn't care for and this was one. I used a Cuttlebug embossing folder and a Spellbinder Label 5 die. The black DP is digital from The Pink Petticoat and was printed on my printer. The sentiment was also printed on my printer and cut with the Spellbinders Label 5 die. The black pearls are from Kaiser and the bead caps were purchased on eBay.

I think that about wraps up the details on this one. If you have questions, please leave them in the comments and I will post a reply here in this post. Thanks os much for stopping by and for your lovely comments. Don't forget to leave a comment for my 30,000 hit blog candy!

Note: A reader asked which Spellbinders label die I used - it was the Label 5 set and I updated my post above to reflect that. Thanks for asking!

Blessings & hugs,

Challenges entered:

Crafts and Me - Distressing

Just Us Girls - Wild Card Dry Embossing

Mojo Monday #140 - Sketch

Kicking Off Our American Summer

Hello! Thank you for stopping by. I'm so glad you are here!

I seem to be in a very patriotic mood approaching this Memorial Day weekend. I think summer always puts me in that mood and this weekend will officially kick off our American summer. I'm looking forward to a barbecue, swimming and watermelon this weekend. What are your plans?

I made this card for Fabulous Friday at Sugar Creek Hollow. The DT challenge this week was to make a recessed window card. I started by assembling the designer paper (Melissa Frances/Stars and 7 Gypsies/Strips), the white CS and the border punched strip. I machine stitched around the outer edge and then used a Spellbinders Nestability to cut the circle. I had to use a shim and run it through the Cuttlebug three times to get it to cut all the way through. I applied two layers of craft foam to the back of the front panel to make a fairly deep recess. I took the cut out circle, rotated it 180 degrees and glued it to the front of the card. Then I layered the front panel over it. The cute little primitive angel is a digital image from Sugar Creek Hollow. I digitally paper pieced the gingham dress, colored the rest with Copics and blinged up her wings, heart and belt with Stickles. I thought the rolled flower and wood heart button were in keeping with the primitive theme I had going, but wanted something more. I kept thinking fireworks but couldn't figure out how to make them. I had the red paper and flourish die on my work table from a card that you will see tomorrow and though the flourish could give the impression of fire works. I added a little red stickles for firework bling.

Now that you know all about my card, I enourage you to stop by the Sugar Creek Hollow blog and see what the rest of the design team has come up with. I promise you won't be disappointed. And be sure to stop by the Sugar Creek Hollow store and check out this week's Fabulous Friday Freebie.

Thanks for stopping by! Please drop back by later this morning to see the card I have made for Fairy Fun Friday.

Blessings & hugs,

Challenges Entered:

No Time to Stamp - Flying High & Proud (colors of your country's flag - obviously mine is USA)

Charisma Cardz Challenge - Going around in circles

Pixie Dust Studio Pixie Challenge - Going round and round

Time for Tea

Hello and welcome! I'm so happy you stopped by. I have a card to share that I made for the Creative Inspirations Wednesday Challenge blog. Our challenge this time is to make a distressed card. Easy peasy for me, right? LOL - I seldom make anything BUT a distressed card! It seems I am in a pink and green groove this week (I didn't say rut because I really love the color combo). I thought I would combine this distressed DT card with two other challenges I am becoming especially fond of - The Shabby Tea Room (Polka Dot Tea) and City Crafter (recipe: one ribbon, two papers and three flowers). Please disregard the tiny die cut flowers. I pushed the bounds of the City Crafter challenge and am only considering the three large fabric flowers as actual flowers. The others are merely embellishments - LOL. Also, both challenges have fabulous prizes this week. The Shabby Tea Room has Thrift Shop October Afternoon DP and scrumptions ribbon donated by Sharon Johnson from the Stamp Simply Ribbon Store. The City Crafter's prize is a $25 gift certificate from the Scrapbooking Cottage.

I have had this vintage image in my files for some time and have been wanting to find a reason to use it. It is from Clearly Vintage and is the cover of a 1914 Speigel catalog. I think she looks like she is ready to attend a tea. The layout was inspired by a village tea shop with vines along the sides.

Here are the details: Pretty in Pink CS and DP from SU, vines/flowers are a Cuttlebug die, Martha Stewart edge punch to make the paper lace, tiny polka dot ribbon from Jo-Ann's, seed pearls from Michael's. I made the fabric flowers by cutting seven scalloped circles each with my Spellbinders dies. The fabric was doubled, with each layer a different fabric. I still haven't found any really good tutorials for making the fabric flowers, even by searching YouTube. If you know of any, please let me know. All edges were distressed with the SU distressing tool and sponged with Creamy Caramel. My stitching was done by machine.

So glad you stopped by. Go ahead and leave a comment too for my blog candy if you are interested. Thanks so much for your lovely comments and if you have a question, please leave it in the comments.

Blessings & hugs,

Challenges Entered:
Flourishes Timeless Tuesday - Make your own flowers
Meljen's Designs - Seeing Spots
Caardvark's - Sketch
ABC Challenge - V is for Vintage
Crazy Challenge - It's a Girl Thing

It's a Patriotic Holiday Weekend!

Good morning and welcome to my Wednesday DT posting for Isabella's Sketchbook. This week we are challenging you to make a Memorial Day weekend card. In the US, Memorial Day weekend kicks off our summer season. So your card can be for the USA's Memorial Day or just inspired by something that you would do on a summer weekend. I combined both inspirations with this charming summer picnic image from Isabella's Sketchbook along with enough red, white and blue to make it a patriotic card. And just for good measure, I threw in a couple of stars and the chipboard USA letters. The VFW post in my neighborhood still sells crepe paper poppies every Memorial Day as a fundraiser and to remind us of the sacrifices made by brave men and women on our behalf. So to tie it all together, I added a red crepe paper flower.

The details: Image by Isabella's Sketchbook, base is Real Red, followed by Whisper White that had been run through a Cuttlebug embossing folder. The red bandana print DP is from Designer Digitals as is the blue bandana print that I used to paper piece the tablecloth (done digitally). The image was colored with Copics and colored pencils. The DP I used to cover the chipboard is ancient Creative Memories paper. The frence punch is from Marth Stewart and the red gingham ribbon is from SU. Daisies embossed on the fence was also a Cuttlebug EF.

I hope you will take the time to stop by Isabella's Sketchbook challenge this week. And while you're at it, stop by the blogs of the rest of the team members. There is talent oozing out of every pore on this team so it is well worth your time.

♥Annika♥Cec♥Diana♥Jackie♥Jennifer♥Linda♥Lisa♥Peggy♥Peri♥Randi♥Sharon♥Sue♥Viv♥

I hope you will grab an Isabella's Sketchbook image and join in the fun with us this week!

Blessings & hugs,

Challenges entered:

Fresh Brewed - Red, White & Blue

Stamp Something - Use 2 of something (stars)

My Time to Craft - Vivid greetings

Oh la la Creations - Bright and Cheerful

Order of the Opus Gluei - Seasonal Icons

The Garden Gate

Hello! I hope you are doing well. So happy you stopped by to check out my post for the fortnightly Creative Card Crew challenge. We have a color challenge for you today - one of my favorite color combintations - pink and green. I chose this charming garden gate digital image from Isabella's Sketchbook and matched it up with green gingham and some beautiful Melissa Francis DP (which is almost entirely covered up). The image was colored with Copics and the sentiment added with my photo editing software. It was sponged with Bashful Blue and Certainly Celery. The two top panels were cut with a Spellbinder's die and the gingham one was embossed with a Cuttlebug embossing folder. I made the pink rolled flower and stuck an SU crystal brad in the center. The leaf was cut with a Sizzix die and a bit of Stickles was added for a bit of sparkle. A pretty straight forward card, but if you have any questions, please feel free to leave them in the comments or email me personally.

Hope to see you over at the Creative Card Crew blog with a pink and green creation sometime in the next fortnight.

Thanks so much for stopping by today and for the sweet comments!

Just a note here: A reader asked if I do my stitching by hand or machine. This is all machine stitching and 99% of all my stitching is by machine. Once in a great while, I will add a bit of hand stitching for a special effect. Thanks for your interest!

Blessings & hugs,

Challenges Entered:

Flourishes Timeless Tuesday - Make your own flowers

Friends Having Fun - Recipe Challenge: 1) Spring theme, 2) Handcut flowers (mine is hand rolled) , 3) wet or dry embossing, 4) pastel colors

Our Creative Corner Sketch Challenge

Good Saturday morning to you and welcome to my post for Our Creative Corner. This week our hostess, Loretta Lock, has designed a lovely sketch for us to use. Here is my take on the sketch. If you are wondering how I came up with the colors, I was running through Friday's challenge blogs and happened upon what I thought would be a pretty color challenge - rust, turquoise and cream at the Just for Fun challenge blog. I have a huge lovely box of K&Co. papers that I remembered had some designs with turquoise and sure enough it had some rust colored paper too. So I was set with a sketch and the right papers, but what about an image? The sketch doesn't have room for a very big image. I couldn't find anything I was satisfied with that would fit in the window of the Spellbinder's frame I wanted to use so I decided on a simple sentiment instead of an image. The sentiment here is actually a STAMP. I know, I know, I never use sentiment stamps anymore (but rather make them up on my computer). I love inspirational stamps and bought a bunch from Rubbernecker a couple of years ago I don't think this one had ever seen ink so I'm happy I got to use it. Under the sentiment I had stamped one of the flowers from SU's Art of Life set in Tempting Turquoise and Always Artichoke. The Spellbinder's diecut was also stenciled with Tempting Turquoise, then speonged very lightly with Creamy Caramel. My turquoise pearls started life as white but I colored them with a Copic to match the stenciling. The next panel down was embossed with an SU embossing folder and brayered with Really Rust ink. The edges of all but the Very Vanilla panel were distressed and sponged with Vintage Photo distress ink. The Really Rust panel was stamped with a Verve flourish stamp and clear embossed to add texture and interest. A bit of lace, a button and some turquoise cord from my stash and this card was good to go.

Please be sure to stop by Our Creative Corner and see what the rest of the team has done with the sketch. Stop by the blogs of these super talented ladies too and leave them some love!

♥Wendy Jensen♥Dana Grothaus♥Diane Gilbert♥Jennifer Meyer♥Jocelyn Turner

♥Julie LeBlanc♥Loretta Lock♥Sarah Gough♥Lori Rider♥

Hope you have a wonderful weekend! Thanks so much for stopping by.

Blessings & hugs,

It's a Tent Card!

Hello again and thanks for stopping back a second time today. Our challenge for you at Fairy Fun Friday is to make a tent card. I had never made one before and used a tutorial found here. I was going for a summery theme here - not sure if I achieved it or not.

The CS is Pretty in Pink, Barely Banana and and the DP is Basic Grey. The image is from the Prairie Fairy, colored with Copics and embellished with Liquid Applique. The butterfly was cut with an SU Sizzlet die and embellished with Stickles. The tulle is tied in a bow and embellished with a fabric flower. The medallions in the top corners were cut with a Spellbinder's die.

I hope you will stop by the Fairy Fun Friday blog and also visit the blogs of the rest of the DT.

♥Lori♥Corry♥Kelly♥Margreet♥Suzi♥Viv♥Hege-Annie♥Ann♥Lisa♥Tonya♥Terry♥Carla♥Trisha, Guest DT♥

Thanks again for stopping by. Hope to see a tent card of yours entered into our challenge this week!

Blessings & hugs,

A Vintage Graduation

It's Friday and it's Fabulous and there's another freebie over at Sugar Creek Hollow! I'm so glad you stopped by today to see my design team card for Sugar Creek Hollow's Fabulous Friday. Our design team was challeged to make a card using our favorite Sugar Creek Hollow image. That's a pretty tough assignment - tough because there are SO many great images in the store. I chose the vintage graduation set from the May release that I have been itching to make a card with. Do you believe I made a card with no sponged or ripped up edges? I wanted it to look very sharp and elegant. I love the way this turned out. I debated quite awhile about putting the flower on it. On one hand, I liked the stark black and white but part of me wanted to throw a little whimsey in so I went with the flower.

For this card I used Mercy's Tuesday Sketch Challenge. It's a new challenge for me - haven't played in that one yet. But I was looking to crank up my mojo with a sketch and I thought this one worked really well with the image. I used the Stars EF from Cuttlebug because anyone who graduates is a star! But I wanted vintage as well so I used the Textile EF for the top layer. The DP is Designer Digitals, printed on my home computer. I used the SU scallop border punch and also a Spellbinders frame die which I stenciled and trimmed to use only a portion of the bottom piece. I made the flower out of crepe paper and the leaves are a Martha punch.

Now I hope you will stop by the rest of the teams' blogs to see what their favorite Sugar Creek Hollow image is. I was super impressed with the work the DT did this week!! And don't forget to stop by the store and pick up your Friday Freebie!

♥Donna♥Stephanie♥Loretta♥Cheri♥Sarah♥Dani♥Tracy-Owner♥Kelly♥ ♥Marsha♥Joan♥Nancy♥ ♥Joseline-DT Coordinator♥Kristina♥Cassie♥Bernadette - May Guest Designer ♥

Thanks so much for stopping by! I hope you are having a wonderful morning. I'll be back later this morning with my post for Fairy Fun Friday. Hope to see you back again then!

Blessings & hugs,

Morning Flower

Good morning and welcome to my post for Isabella's Sketchbook. Our challenge to you this week is to make a birthday card using one of Isabella's delightful digital images. This prize, going out to a random winner, will be two of Isabella's digital images plus a Cuttlebug Lace Tree Embossing Folder and the "I Won" badge. I hope you will stop by Isabella's Sketchbook Challenge Blog to see the birthday greetings the other talented designers have for your inspiration. And while you're at it, stop by the designer's personal blogs and check out their awesome work. We have some very talented designers on this team!

♥Annika♥Cec♥Diana♥Jackie♥Jennifer♥Linda♥Lisa♥Peggy♥Peri♥Randi♥Sharon♥Sue♥Viv♥

When I sat down to make this card, I had a vague idea of what I wanted to do, but really wasn't sure. I fiddled with it quite a bit and really love the final outcome. Sometimes things just come together so nicely and this was one of those happy occasions. Built on a shell of Old Olive and River Rock, I layered embossed vellum and Tempting Turquoise of them. I ripped around the edges of a rectangular piece of K&Co. DP and sponged the eges with Vintage Photo. The edges of the vellum are also sponged with Vintage Photo. The digital image was colored with Copics nd the flower was printed a second time, colored and trimmed out to be popped up for dimension. I also repeated teh process with the other flower in the corner. Both flowers have a Kaiser yellow pearl in the center. The lace is by Prima and the vintage corner is a piece of cardboard cut with a Cuttlebug die and embossed with Judi-Kins Egyptian Gold EP. The sentiment was printed on my printer and cut with a Spellbinders tag die. I think that about covers it for this card.

Hope to see you playing along this week in the Isabella's Sketchbook Challenge. Wishing you many blessings on your day.

Hugs,

Challenges entered:

Crafty Catz - Petals & Pearls

Papertake Weekly - Say it with Flowers

MelJen's Challenge - Flowers & Blooms

Pixie Dust Studio Pixie Challenge - Cut it Out

Pollycraft Monday Challenge - Summer Blooms

Shelly's Images - Anything Goes!

Stamp Something - Celebrate

Die Cut Dreams - Lace it Up

Your Next Stamp - Cut it out and pop it up

Digital Tuesday - Use vellum

Crafty Angels - Ripping & tearing

All That Scraps - Dry Embossing

Pixie Cottage - 3-D

A Child's Card

The challenge this week at the Creative Inspirations Wednesday Challenge blog is to make a card for a child. Our sponsor is Lauretta's Stamps and we were generously given our choise of several images to use for our DT sample. I have colored the one I selected with Copics. The DP used here is all digital from Digital Delights printed on my home printer and layered over Lavendar Lace and Barely Banana CS. The edges were sponged the Creamy Caramel and the bottom was punched with a Martha Stewart edge punch. The chipboard heart was cut with a Cuttlebug die. I used white crackle paint to which I added a drop of Lavendar Lace reinker. The flower is a Prima and I used Stickles on the celestial mobile. I hope you will drop by Creative Inspirations Wednesday Challenge blog to see what the other designers have created with Lauretta's Stamps.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Blessings & hugs,

With Liberty & Justice For All

I am so honored to be the guest designer this week at The Shabby Tea Room, an outstanding challenge blog that was launched just ten weeks ago. If you are a regular visitor to my blog, you know I love shabby and vintage style paper crafting so The Shabby Tea Room became a place that I always enjoy visiting, and I do visit often. Every week, I try to play in their challenge and it's wonderful to be able to see all the beautiful entries. When I drop by, I know I am sure to see some serious eye candy and I have discovered blogs of some really talented shabby crafters. So when Debbie invited me to be the guest designer for this week, I jumped at the opportunity.

The challenge this week is an inspiration challenge and it's perfectly suited to our summer patriotic holidays that are coming up. Here's my shabby creation that was inspired by the photo. I started with a base of Night of Navy layered with Riding Hood Red and another layer of Night of Navy that I embossed with a Cuttlebug EF and sponged with Craft White ink. I cut three white and three red wavy stripes with my old Creative Memories wavy trimmer, distressed them and glued them to a backing piece. Then I sewed them together with a zigzag stitch to look like a waving flag. I ran a ruffle of red crepe paper along the bottom. The lovely country-style patriotic heart is a digital image from Isabella's Sketchbook and was colored with Copics. The "chipboard" stars started life as the white backing for an SU DP pack. I cut two each and glued them together for a chipboard like thickness, sponged the edges with Vintage Photo distress ink and applied chunky glitter. I created the round sentiment seal on my computer and made it faux chipboard by cutting 4 more circles of cardstock and stacking and gluing them together. The seal says "With Liberty & Justice For All". It's mounted on a Cuttlebug diecut tag through which I ran the linen thread so it dangles from the button/ribbon embellishment.

So now you know everything there is to know about this card. But, of course, if you have any questions I am happy to share everything I do. Just leave me a comment or send me a private email. Be sure to stop by The Shabby Tea Room to see what the uber talented design team has to offer. Believe me, it's always a delightful experience!

Thanks so much for stopping by and for any comment you care to leave!

Blessings & hugs,

Challenges entered:

Just Us Girls - Color challenge: Red, White & Blue

Stamp With Fun - Stripes

The Wildflower Patch - Ribbon, sparkle and dimension

A Birthday Classic

Good morning and welcome! I hope your Saturday morning is warm and wonderful! So glad you stopped off here this morning to check out my card for Our Creative Corner. This week our wonderful hostess, Loretta Lock, has a tough challenge for us - to make that dreaded masculine card. Ug :(. There are few things that really, really challenge me when it comes to card making but making a guy card is one of them. So I have been hemming and hawing all week and just couldn't make a start. I just really don't have many images suitable for guys. So my fall back was VINTAGE! This charming image is from Magic Moonlight. I paired it up with some 7 Gypsies DP and layered it over Riding Hood Red and Soft Suede. The image was printed on my home printer and I layered the sentiment over it and printed that also. The hardware, except for the brad and compass, are from Tim Holtz. The tickets are from Autumn Leaves but there wasn't one that said Happy Birthday so I had to print that on my printer and stamp the ticket outline around it. The compass is from StarlitStudio.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. I think it will be perfect for the DH's birthday later this year. I hope you'll stop by Our Creative Corner to see what the other design team members have to show you today. As always, there is an abundance of talent and some really wonderful creations!

Wishing you a wonderful weekend.

Hugs and blessings,

Challenges entered:

Stamp, Scrap & Doodle Saturdays - Masculine

Stampin' for the Weekend - A card for a male

Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge - Metal

Allsorts Challenge - Birthday

Treehouse Thursday - Masculine theme

One Stop Craft Challenge - Summer breeze

Pixie Cottage - Vintage and/or sketch

Villa Road

Welcome back to my second Friday post. I'm here to share the card I made for Fairy Fun Friday, The Prairie Fairy's challenge. This week our challenge is to use flowers on our card. I tried to include a variety - a beautiful snapdragon garden scene (Villa Road from The Prairie Fairy) plus several hand made flowers. The rose follows the Splitcoast tutorial (but I only have 5 petal dies/punches). For the two small ribbon flowers, I just ran a basting stitch along one edge, gathered it and rolled it into several layers. I hand stitched the bottom together so it wouldn't unwind. The sentiment was printed on my computer and cut with a Spellbinders tag die. The leaf is a Sizzix die, the image was colored with Copics. I used a couple of Cuttlebug embossing folders and the butterflies were cut with an SU Sizzix Embosslit die. I added a couple of bead caps/brads for a finishing touch.

♥Lori♥Corry♥Kelly♥Margreet♥Suzi♥Viv♥Hege-Annie♥Ann♥

Lisa♥Tonya♥Terry♥Carla♥Trisha, Guest DT♥

I hope you will join this easy challenge this week. Can't wait to see what you make with flowers. Thanks so much for stopping by and for the lovely comments you leave. If you have any questions on my work, please feel freeto leave it in the comments section or email me directly.

Blessings & hugs,

Challenges entered:

Dare U 2 Digi - Shabby Chic

Fun 'n' Funky Challenges - Metal mania

Twisted Thursdays - Home Sweet Home with ribbon

Pixie Cottage - Vintage and/or Sketch

Quixotic Challenges - Let your garden grow (use D.I.Y. flowers on your project)

Sir Stampalot May Challenge - Butterflies and Blossoms

A Rootin' - Tootin' Fabulous Friday

Good morning! Thanks so much for starting your Friday off with me. It's another Fabulous Friday with Sugar Creek Hollow. You know what that means, right? It's time to get on over to the store and pick up your Fabulous Friday Freebie.

This has been an exciting week for the design team because we have a new release. We've had the images for several weeks, but this is the first time we have been able to post with the new images. There are four new sets and let me tell you, Tracy has outdone herself this time. They are all seasonal/summer related and I love all of them. The DT was given a color challenge this week: Blue Bayou, Soft Sky, Chocolate Chip and Vanilla. Those colors seemed perfect for the Howdy Partner Father's Day set. There are four images in the set, of which I chose to use only two. The other sets in this release include Summer Picnic, Vintage Graduation and Jelly-Makin' Day.

The card uses the colors I mentioned above plus designer paper from the retired Western Sky DP pack. I dry embossed the Chocolate Chip panel as well as the sentiment panel with theCuttlebug Paisly EF and sponged the Chocolate Chip lightly with Craft White ink. The sentiment panel was sponged with Creamy Caramel. The wooden buttons are from Jo-Ann's and the chipboard star was cut with the Sizzix Stars #2 die. I added a little rafia to give it a country feel. The cowboy hat was colored with Copics.

I hope you will take time to stop by the other DT's blogs and see what they have made with the new release.

♥Donna♥Stephanie♥Loretta♥Cheri♥
♥Sarah♥Dani♥Tracy-Owner♥Kelly♥
♥Marsha♥Joan♥Nancy♥
♥Joseline-DT Coordinator♥
♥Kristina♥Cassie♥
Bernadette - May Guest Designer♥

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you will come back later today to see the card I have made for Fairy Fun Friday.

Blessings & hugs,

Challenges entered:

ABC Challenge - U is for unused stash (mine is the rafia I've had forever and the retired DP)

Cute Card Thursday - For someone special

Isabella's Color Challenge

Good morning and welcome to Wednesday with Isabella's Sketchbook challenge. You know, one of the very first things that attracted me to Isabella's website was her website header and graphics. I loved the colors and the whimsical feel of it. I couldn't wait to dive inside and see what kind of images she was offering. I love this week's challenge too, which is to create a card or project using the colors from her website header. You can use one or all of them. I went for all - the whole enchilada! I think the image I selected to use on this card is sort of whimsical too - and sooooo fitting for me and I bet many other crafters too. I would rather create than clean and spend way too much time in my stamping room to the detriment of the rest of the house.

If you haven't seen Isabella's images yet, you definitely need to browse through her store. There you will find contemporary, vintage, whimsical and many other types of digital images. And be sure to stop over the the blog to see what the rest of the design team have come up with. I'm sure you will be inspired. You will need to use one of Isabella's images to enter the challenge. There will be a randomly-drawn prize of two digtal images for the winner of this week's challenge.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope I see you over at Isabella's and good luck wining those twodigital images from Isabella's store.

Blessings & hugs,

Challenges entered:

ABC Challenge - U is for unused stash (mine is the paper from SU's Flowers for You DP)

Fab 'n' Funky Challenge - Metal Mania

Little Red Wagon - Brads

Dare You to Digi - Anything Goes

Vintage Fairies

It's time again for the Creative Inspirations Wednesday Challenge and this week it's Fairies. I love fairies and have been wanting to do a project with this vintage image for some time. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to use it for this week's design team card. I also made the card with the Shabby Tea Room and City Crafter (pink) challenges in mind. The challege this week at the Shabby Tea Room is to make something with chipboard. I like making my own chipboard, which I do by cutting two or three layers of thin cardboard with dies and then stacking and gluing them to achieve chipboard thickness. Since I wanted this chipboard to be white, these were cut with the white backing that comes in the SU designer paper packs. I also dry embossed the butterfly for more texture. Once glued, I sponged them with Creamy Caramel ink and coated them with chunky glitter. The card base is Pink Pirouette and then a layer of Very Vanilla that I stamped a pattern on with Vintage Photo distress ink. Both layers were sponged with Creamy Caramel. The vintage image was printed on my home printer and torn out. The edges were sponged with Creamy Caramel and Vintage Photo. I cut a piece out of a doily and added a bow of crinkly seam binding and a Prima rose plus a vintage style LaMode button on the butterfly.

Thanks so much for stopping by today to see what I have to offer for the Creative Imaginations Wednesday Challenge. I missed last week's challenge (due to my vacation) and the introduction of a new designer on the team, April Rose. I hope you will stop by the challenge blog to see what our talented designers have to offer!

Blessings & hugs,

Challenges entered:

The Shabby Tea Room - Use Chipboard

City Crafter - Photo Inspiration/Color Challenge

Crafty Creations - Magical

Die Cut Dreams - Shabby Chic

PaperPlay Challenge - Stamp or Digi and some bling

Wildflower Patch - Ribbon, sparkle, dimension

May Days

This week our challenge at the Creative Card Crew is a sketch challenge. I jumped at that challenge to make a vintage card. I am making a lot of cards now for digital image companies, so when I get an opportunity to do a more open challenge, I like to work in my vintage images. This is another of the vintage calendar images that I started with in April. I love the greens in this DP and ribbon and they matched up perfectly with the vintage image. Our hostess, Emma Lockly, has given us this beautiful sketch to work with. I kept it fairly simple with just one layer of DP (retired SU Brocade Backgrounds) and then three strips of Very Vanilla, sponged with Creamy Caramel and embossed with a CB folder. The distressed edges of the DP were sponged with Antique Photo distress ink. I don't remember where the ribbon is from. It's been in the old stash for several years. The flower is from Prima, the bead cap from eBay and the stick pin from SU Pretties Kit. Let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks so much for stopping by today to see what I had to offer for the challenge. Be sure to stop by the Creative Card Crew blog to see the other wonderful DT samples and then show us what you can do with this wonderful sketch.

Blessings & hugs,

Challenges entered:

Crafty Cardmakers - Distressed

Anniversary With a Twist

It's time for another Our Creative Corner challenge and this week our dear hostess, Loretta Lock, has thown in a twist. We are to make an anniversary card, but it is to be inspired by either the year or the theme of an anniversary - yours, someone you are sending it to or just one that you like. She has kindly provided us with this website listing traditional and modern anniversary gift themes. In my haste to get the card made before I left on vacation on Thursday, again this week, I just read the title of the challenge and made an anniversary card - one that I want to give to my DH as our 38th anniversary is coming up in July. However, I'm going to fudge a bit here and say that I made it for a 7 or 21 year anniversary since the theme for both is brass. At least I didn't have to make an entirely new card like I did last week!

This is another brand new set from JustRite Stamps, part of the April release that I won. It is colored with Copics. The DP and the brass sea charms are both from the K&C Sea Glass collection, which have been sitting in my stash for a year now. It's mounted onto a panel of Blue Bayou and then Soft Suede. The rope and eyelets are both from SU. The edges are sponged with Vintage Photo distress ink.

That's about it for today's post. I hope you'll spend a few minutes checking out the DT samples over on the Our Creative Corner site. Hope to see you joining in the fun with us over there this week! Wishing you a wonderful weekend!

Blessings & hugs,
:

Challenges entered

MelJen's Designs - Our Sea Creature Friends

Sentimental Sundays - For that special someone

Whoopsi Daisy Challenge - As you like it

Crafty Cardmakers - Distressed

A Recycled Fairy

It's a Prairie Fairy Friday and this is my first week posting with the design team at The Prairie Fairy. The challenge this week is to make a card or project using something recycled or repurposed. Projects are not one of my strong points and after scratching my head all week, I jumped into gear and made....a tag. Okay, probably the least exciting of all the DT projects this week, but it is very vintage which made me happy when I was making it.

I used a piece of the heavy chipboard that comes in a paper pack. I wanted to embellish the tag pretty heavily so I wanted something stiff. I also used some crochet thread from my grandmother's sewing basket that is at least 50 years old so I guess you could consider that repurposed. I had already glued the distressed paper to the tag backing when I realized I hadn't done any stitching on it. So I took my paper piercing tool and pierced holes for large cross stitches at equal increments aound the tag and then used the crochet stread to make the stitches.

Details: DP is from K&Co. , the fairy is from the Prairie Fairy, colored with Copics, wings are layered vellum with Dazzling Diamonds glitter. Sentiment made on my computer and embossedon vellum. I made the flower from K&Co. paper. The flourish is from Boss Kut and the bead caps were purchased on eBay. Please feel free to post any questions in the comments section.

Now it's time to introduce you to my new team mates at The Prairie Fairy. Please stop by the blog and see all the lovely recycled projects and then go and make something to enter into the challenge! You can win digital stamps!! Can't wait to see what you'll make!

So glad you stopped by today. Have a Fabulous Friday!

Blessings & hugs,

Challenges entered:

Flutter By Wednesdays - Open but must include an angel, fairy or butterfly

Stampin' Royalty - Anything but a card

My Mother, My Mentor

Good morning and thanks for stopping by. Today I only have my Isabella's DT post. I am getting ready to go on vacation and wasn't able to complete the sample for the Creative Inspirations challenge but I hope you will stop by and see what the rest of the team has to inspire you.

This week at Isabella's Sketchbook, the challenge is to make a Mother's Day card. Isabella has so many beautiful images in her store that would make wonderful Mother's Day cards, but I have had my eye on this one since I first saw it. Isn't it precious? And while I was surfing the daily challenges, I found that Stamp it Crazy blog has a Mother's Day challenge this week that requires you to include a sentiment about what you love most about your mother. I knew immediately the angle I was going to take. I have always admired and looked up to my mother for the leadership she showed when I was growing up. She was a pilar of our church, always involved in so many ministries and with the youth. She taught me to care about others and to be a champion for them. I have always wanted to emulate her and be a role model for my children, hence the sentiment that I made up on my computer.

The Details: Little Mother image from Isabella's Sketchbook, colored with Copics, DP from Digtal Delights and printed on my home printer, Blush Blossom and Whisper White CS, Flourishes white CS for the main image for coloring with Copics, the chipboard letters were cut with a Spellbinders alphabet, chuhky glitter from Jo-Ann, Cuttlebug lattice and vine dies, Cuttlebug heart die, Spellbinders die for the main image, Creamy Caramel ink for sponge distressing. I made the little pink roses out of crepe paper.

Please take a few minutes stop by Isabella's Challenge blog to see the rest of the teams' samples. I can promise you it will be worth your time. I had a peek at the samples before they were published and I was just blown away by the talent on this team. I hope to see your entry into our challenge this week!

Thanks a million for stopping by this morning. I love to hear from my readers so please leave me a comment.

Blessings & hugs,

Challenges Entered:

The Shabby Tea Room - Get Your Bling On

Sentimental Sundays - For that special someone (must include sentiment)

Crafty Cardmaker - Distressed

For Fun Challenges - Make a mom card

Little Red Wagon - Pink& Green

Stamptacular Sunday - Mother's Day

The Pink Elephant - Mommy, I Love You

Stampin' B's - Mother's Day

No Flowers for Mom

Good morning and Happy Saturday to you! Here's my DT sample for the Our Creative Corner this week. That's right - no flowers for Mom ): Our challenge is to make a Mother's Day card with NO FLOWERS!! Caps and double exclamation points because I already had a card made and when I went to upload it to the challenge blog, I realized that the challenge called for no flowers so I had to go back to square one.

Do you know how hard it is to erradicate flowers from cardmaking? Well, at least for me it's difficult! Don't laugh - you'll see if you choose to take this challenge. You'll have to scour your paper sash for flowerless paper, hunt through your stamp stacks for stamps with not a petal in sight and embellishments? Heavens, how do we make a card without flower embellies? Thank heavens for buttons and bows!

Hey, guess what? I won first place again this week at JustRite Inspirations! Awesome, huh? It's a $50 gift certificate for JustRite products. This stamp is from their April release which I won for my first dogwood card about a month ago (won the entire April release - woohoo!!). You do have to use a JustRite stamp to enter their challenges. This stamp worked perfectly for the no flowers challenge. The set is Kaleidoscope Centers and Borders and I tried to carry the kaleidoscope feeling outward with the Spellbinders die cut mats. The card layout is from the challenge sketch at JustRite Inspirations.

This is a pretty straightforward card. The coloring was done with Copics. Numerous Spellbinders dies were used. All edges were distressed and sponged with Tim Holtz Antique Linen distress ink. The sentiment "for Mom" was done on my computer.

Thanks so much for stopping by today. The DT's samples this week over at the OCC are totally AWESOME. What a great group of artists we have over there! I am so proud to be part of that team. So be sure to stop by and get inspired. Stop by their blogs and leave them some love too!

Have a great weekend!

Blessings & hugs,

Challenges:

JustRite Friday - Sketch

Quixotic Challenge - That's so distressing