A Pop of Victorian Velvet

Happy Saturday friends! So happy to have you visiting again.  Since it's Saturday, it must be time for another challenge over at Our Creative Corner.  This week Tui Nathan is our hostess and she is challenging us to make a black and white project and then add a pop of color.  I started out with the black and white and thought I did good achieving that color palette.  Then came time for the pop of color and I probably let myself get a little carried away with the Victorian Velvet.

Don't you just love this Wendy Vecchi stamp?  It has such a lovely look - like vintage lace.  I stamped onto white CS with Ranger Archival Jet Black ink.  The stamp wasn't large enough to cover the entire tag so I filled in the blank space at the bottom with script stamp from Wendy's Live and Make Art set.  To cover the joining and give some extra white, I layered some white paper twist ribbon over it.  The sentiment was stamped on the Movers and Shapers Mini Label and then it was given just one coat of UTEE and sponged with Victorian Velvet. I had a scrap of the millinery netting floating around my desk from another project I worked on this week and thought it added just the right touch to my little vintage creation.  That stuff was super expensive, but I picked u a few yards to sell in my Etsy as I had several requests for it and it does make a fun addition to a make.

The flower was made with the TH Tattered Florals die and coated with UTEE using my melting pot and an old paint brush.  Tutorial here.

And that's it for this week.  Pretty simple, but I needed to save time.  I've had a nasty cold this week and I'm exhausted.  Plus I have some big projects in the works.  I hope you will stop by the blogs of the rest of the design team for Our Creative Corner.

Thanks again for stopping by and blessings on your weekend.

Products Used to Make this Tag:

Wendy Vecchi Sentimental Art	Movers & Shapers Mini Labels	Rayon Seam Binding	White Paper Twist	Black Millinery Netting
Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel (UTEE)	Alterations Tattered Florals Die	Ranger Jet Black Archival Ink	Alterations Tag and Bookplates Die

InLinkz.com

A Harvest of Gratitude

Good morning and happy weekend.  It's hard to believe that it is Saturday again.  Where did the week go?  And it's time once again for Saturday's Our Creative Corner challenge.  This week Lori Rider is our hostess again and she has a fall color challenge for us.

These are Stampin' Up! colors and if you don't have them, just get as close as you can to the color requirements.  I don't have Pool Party so I used the old Soft Sky and the only place I could work it in was for the stamping in the circle.  I also used this week's Mojo Monday sketch.

These are great fall colors and I felt like making a fall card, but when I sat down to get started, I found that what I really wanted to do was to make a Halloween card with orange and black.  Every idea I came up with required orange and black, nothing was coming to mind for these colors - no stamps, no vintage images, no embellishment ideas, nothing - yuck, my mojo was stuck.  It took me a lot longer than it should have to come up with this and I'm not thrilled with it. (Update:  After sitting here looking at it on my desk all day, I've decided that I do like it - it grew on me and I'm glad I plowed on through to the end.)  It's better than the first "draft" version which was without the buttons and the leaves.  The leaves helped pep it up a bit, but the down side was that they covered up that wonderful piece of burlap.

I used my Wendy Vecchi gingham stamp from Nature's Art (great set, it also has that wonderful Wendy butterfly) a lot on this card - obviously for the Really Rust gingham.  I also stamped the leaves with Old Olive and the gingham stamp plus the tiny leaf that I covered with Crystal Effects was also stamped with the W.V. gingham stamp.  Inks used are Chocolate Chip, Really Rust, Old Olive and Soft Sky.  The papers are all SU, the stamps are a mix of SU, Inkadinkado and Pink Paislee.  The crocheted lace, the burlap thread and the wide burlap are all from my Etsy shop.

That's pretty much it.  For a card that took 4 hours, I don't have a lot to say about it.  If you have any questions, please let me know.  And thanks so much for stopping by and for any comment you care to leave.  I hope you are planning to scurry on over to Our Creative Corner to enter your fall card with these colors on it.  There's lots of mojo floating around over there that you can grab too!


Other Challenges Entered:
The Stamp Man - Circle It
Sweet Stampin Challenge - In Stitches

Love = Love

Good morning, friends!  I hope the beginning of our Labor Day weekend finds you well and getting ready to enjoy the last official weekend of summer.  And if you aren't in the USA, I hope you enjoy your weekend also.  We are entering my very favorite time of the year - autumn.  Unfortunately so many of the things I enjoy about fall aren't present here in Miami, Florida - no turning leaves, no fresh ripe apples, no smell of smoke in the crisp air from leaves burning.  So I'll have to make due with decorating my home and making crafty fall items.

This week at our Creative Corner, one of our brand new design team members, Holly Kean is our hostess.  The fun challenge she has for us is called Stamp Happy and she wants us to stamp on our designer paper.  I love the look and creativity of stamping on designer paper, but I never think to do it, so thanks to Holly for giving me a push in this direction!

This card is my very first piece ever made with a Wendy Vecchi/Studio 490 stamp.  I finally broke down and ordered a couple of sets.  I admire her work, but I'm not sure her style fits with my style very well.  I've been alternating between liking this card and being very lukewarm about it.  I'm still haven't made a final decision on that.  I purchased two sets - Love to Make Art and Nature's Art, and this card combines stamps from both sets.  What I really like is the text stamp (directly under the heart and also used it to make the second layer of the card) and the sentiments (I'm a big sentiment/quote fan).

I used this week's Mojo Monday sketch

My DP started life as a book page.  I used a technique I saw on Tim Holtz's blog to lift some of the print off the page.

Here are two photos of the process.  I used a vintage book, about 50 years old. I don't know how this would work with a new book.  Basically you just lay the tape directly on the paper surface, burnish it a bit and then rip off.  In the bottom photo, you can see on the tape that about half the surface ripped off.  After that step, I stamped the leaf and the gingham stamps directly on the paper with Brushed Corduroy distress ink.  The two top panels were cut with PTI dies - one is the Spiral Notebook Page die and the other is the Button Card Collection die.  For the notepad, I also embossed it with the Tim Holtz notepad texture fade.  The heart was stamped and trimmed out.  Peeled Paint and Scattered Straw distress inks were used on the notepad and the heart and butterfly.  The hardware and lace are from my Etsy shop.  I stamped the sentiment on the butterfly "and in the end, the love you make is equal to the love you take" a quote from an old Beatles' song probably written by John Lennon.  

Thanks so much for stopping by today.  I'd be interested to know what you think of this card/style.  Happy weekend everyone!

Challenges Entered:
Fashionable Stamping Challenges - Ribbon or Lace

One Tough Challenge!

Good morning and happy Saturday!  So happy to see you back to check out my sample for this week's Our Creative Corner challenge.  So what, you wonder, is this week's challenge?  Our challenge host, Kristin, has created a 1-2-3-4 challenge.  That's one patterned paper, 2 layers, 3 stamped images (sentiment can be one) and 4 embellishments - can be four different or the same.  The full description of the challenge can be found on the challenge blog.  Well, you can imagine the tough time I had with this one!  Really, I almost folded.  Two layers?? Come on, pl-eee-ase!  I had at least three different cards designed before I finally hit one that I thought would work with my style.  But in the end, I really like the outcome.  And that's why tough challenges are so great. They really take us out of our element and allow us to create something we normally wouldn't have.

Here is my two-layer card.   Built on a shell of Bravo Burgundy, I created one layer with the top half of K&Co. designer paper and the bottom half is Kraft run through the Cuttlebug Moraccan Screen embossing folder.  I ink distressed the kraft panel with Aged Mahogany and dabbed my homemade glimmer mist around the edges of both the upper and lower panels.  I used two Tim Holtz stamps in Aged Mahogany on the K&Co. DP - Flights of Fancy and Urban Grunge.  My sentiment is from the Verve Thankful Hearts set.

My four embellishments are 1) Cuttlebug die cut corner, 2) Boss Kut die cut leaf flourish, 3) handmade flower and 4) row of lace.  Mysecond layer is my sentiment was created by stamping with the Verve Thankful Hearts set on a Spellbinders die cut and embossed with the Cuttlebug Organic Flourishes folder.

Okay gang.  Now it is your turn.  Stop by Our Creative Corner to get inspired by the wonderful work of the rest of the OCC design team and then get to work on your recipe card.  Can't wait to see what you'll come up with!

Thanks so much for stopping by today.  I deeply appreciate your supportive comments!  Have a wonderful weekend.

Gently Distressed

Thanks for stopping by today to view my sample for the weekly Our Creative Corner challenge.  We have a relaxing challenge for you this week.  At least we hope you will be relaxed when you finish your project for our challenge.  Our host, Sarah Gough, challenged us to De-stress by Distressing our card that we made following the OCC sketch.  You know, I almost always scissor distress my edges, right?  Do you believe I didn't do that for this challenge?  Yikes, I was so into the sketch that I forgot all about the distressing requirement.  Fortunately I always ink distress my edges so that allowed the card to meet the challenge requirements.  I almost ripped it apart and started on it with my scissors, but my team mates weighed in and nixed that.  So here is my very gently distressed card.

I saw the previews of this new Button Boutique stamp set by Papertrey Inc. and absolutely had to have it.  The website said it was being released on February 15th, so I checked the site at 12:00 a.m. on the 15th and sure enough it was there for purchase.  So I splurged and bought the stamp set and three coordinating dies.  I think I will be able to get quite a bit of use out of this sweet vintage set.

The Dets:
Paper:  Very Vanilla, MME Bella Bella and polka dot by Pink Petticoat, adjusted the color in PhotoShop Elements so it coordinated with the MME paper.  The coordinating solid colored mat was created on PhotoShop Elements also to match the MME paper.
Stamps:  Button Boutique and Birthday Basics from Papertrey Ink
Ink:  Blue Bayou, Antique Linen distress ink
Accessories:  Creative Memories corner rounder, lace doily cut with a Spellbinders' Scallop die, lace, ribbon and chipboard buttons made with Papertrey dies Buttoned Up 1 & 2 (scroll down to the bottomof the page)

That's it on the details.  Let me know if you have any questions.  Love hearing from you all and thank you so so much for continuing to support me.  I hope to see your beautiful distressed card following our sketch over on the challenge blog this week!

Challenges Entered:
The Shabby Tea Room -  Buttons and Bows
The Pink Elephant - Buttons, Lace, Ribbon
Flourishes Timeless Tuesday - Birthday
Stampin' for the Weekend - Monochrome
Rainbow Lady's Challenge - Shabby Chic

Vintage Paper Doll

Welcome friends! Happy to see you back for Our Creative Corner's Saturday challenge.  This week, our wonderful host Lori Rider is challenging us to Cut it Out!  That's right, do some fussy cutting, paper piecing, paper toll, out of the box or other type of cutting on your project this week.  I decided to play with paper dolls.  I had grabbed this little vintage cutie from Vintage Image Crafts recently (if you sign up for their newsletter, they send you vintage images now and then).  I thought she would be the perfect thing to cut out.  I used the Mojo Monday sketch and created the vertical panel with SU's So Many Sayings stamp.  I vintaged it up a bit with a Fiskars corner punch and some stamps from Inque Boutique.  I used some of SU's retired Cerise DSP and stamped in Real Red.  Then I whipped up a felt flower edged with bright red Stickles, cut a Spellbinders tag and die cut a small red glittery heart with some new SU paper that sparkles but doesn't leave glitter all over.  My SU demo gave me a small sample and it came in handy here.  I also did a bit of stitching and threw on a scrap of shabby red seam binding.  This card makes me smile.  

Hope to see you over at Our Creative Corner.  There's a lot of good stuff happening over there these days!  We have some talented new additions to our design team and some of our more senior designers are still there turning out beautiful samples every week.  

Challenges entered:

Mojo Monday - Sketch

Flourishes Bring Back Beautiful - The Beauty of Love

Sentimental Sundays - Happy Valentine's Day

Stamptacular Sunday - Hearts Gone Wild

The Pink Elephant - Be My Valentine

Crafts and Me - It's Red!

Cute Card Thursday - Hearts and Flowers

Just Add Ink - Just Add Love

Stampin' for the Weekend - St. Valentine's Day

The Stamp Man Challenge- Hearts

Crazy 4 Challenges - Use Hearts

Branching Out and Breaking Free

Welcome, once again, friends to my Saturday post for Our Creative Corner.  This week, our host is Lori Rider and she has a tough challenge for us.  She wants all of us to branch out by making a CAS card with a tree on it.  Now, you might not think that it is tough to make a CAS card, but I found it to be a major challenge.  My first card didn't make the grade.  I had it all made and even photographed it and uploaded it to a draft post on my blog, but decided it just wasn't me.  So I tossed it and went back to the drawing board.  And here's the result.  I like it much better than the first.  It still has my signature vintage feel to it, but I didn't rip up the edges and I didn't stitch on it.  And really not much in the way of embellies so I deem it CAS.  

I stamped the single tree from Lovely as a Tree three times using masking to do so.  Then I over-stamped the bird and branch from Tim Holtz's Urban Grunge set in Memento Tuxedo Black and clear embossed it.  I sponged the edges with Vintage Photo distress ink and created the sentiment on my computer.  The tag is a Spellbinders die, the black paper lace was made with a Martha Stewart border punch, the background Classified Ads stamp is from Wimsey Stamps and the buttons are SU.  The papers are Kraft, Whisper White and the gingham is from Jo-Ann.  

Thanks for stopping by!  I want to give a huge thank you to all my followers - both new and old.  I so appreciate your comments and encouragement.  I hope you will all stop by Our Creative Corner to see the beautiful CAS cards the team has made.  We would love to have you "Branch Out" with us this week.  

Challenges Entered:
Little Red Wagon - Use Kraft
Pixie Cottage - Buttons and/or Sketch
CCEE Stampers - Use Punches
Dutch Dare Card Challenge - Button, Button
Paper Play Challenge - Stamp in Out

A 3-D Valentine Project

Hello!  Today is a very special day at Our Creative Corner.  We are excited to welcome five talented new designers to our team and today is their very first challenge.  Our wonderful host, Wendy Jensen, has challenged us to make a 3-D Valentine project.  Oh my, what to make?  I'm really fresh out of project ideas.  And for Valentine's Day, I wanted to do something vintage.  Finally I decided on a very Victorian style Valentine's greeting with this cone shaped "envelope" and a tag type greeting tucked inside.  I have to say that this design is not my original idea.  I saw these at Christmas on Anne's Paper Fun and thought the cone-shaped "envelope" would work great for a Valentine.  

To make this, I started with an 8" heart shaped doily, traced it on to a sheet of K&Co. designer paper and cut it out, giving me two hearts of the same size.  I made a tri-fold out of them and then took a 6" heart shaped doily and stamped the Classified Ads background stamp from Whimsey Stamps on it.  Then it was misted with my homemade Vintage Photo glimmer mist and when dry, it was wrapped around the two larger folded hearts.  I threaded a piece of shabby seam binding through the holes around the top of the smaller heart and added a toile piece stamped from Gentler Times (SU retired) colored with Copics.  A sweet vintage cupid was added to the front as well as a handmade flower made with the Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die and a vintage style SU brad.  

A little pull-out tag type greeting was made for the inside featuring another vintage Valentine image, cut with a Spellbinders heart and adorned with several pieces of ribbon and lace.  The sentiment is from SU's Holiday Best set.

Thanks for stopping by for a visit today.  I hope you will stop by the blogs of all our new designers and wish them well.  We have a lot of cute Valentine's projects to share with you so be sure to stop by the OCC blog too.  

Challenges Entered:
Sugar Creek Hollow - Sweet Vintage Valentine
Tag Tuesday Challenge - Valentines
Creative Cottage Challenge - Shaped Cards
Charisma Cardz - Valentines/Love
C.R.A.F.T. Challenge - Trifold Card with a Tag Insert
Meljen's - Put Your Heart on It
If the Shoe Fits - Anything Goes - Except a Card
Crazy4Challenges - Vintage or Shabby
J.U.G.S. - Handmade Flowers
Speedy the Cat's Friends Challenge - A Valentine Card
Soartful Challenges - Victorian Romance

Dreams and Dressing Up

Good Saturday morning to you all!  Thanks so much for starting your weekend off by dropping by to see my most recent Our Creative Corner card.  Our host, Wendy Jensen, has thought up such a cool challenge for us this week.  It's called Let's Play Dress Up.  She's given us a very basic sketch and is challenging us to dress it up.  Well, you don't have to ask me twice!  I was off and running with this one and here is my dressed up card.  I started with some K&Co. DP and added Always Artichoke which had been embossed with the Cuttlebug Textile folder.  I did a little punching along the border of the green and added some hand dyed lace.  Then came a panel stamped with the lovely filagree note stamp from the SU! Notably Ornate set that was stamped in Frayed Burlap DI and spritzed with my Vintage Photo glimmer mist.


My handmade flower is from several dies including Tim Holtz Tattered Floral die and was made with paper and crinoline, sponged with Antique Linen and Vintage Photo distress inks and the dabbed with some of the gold alcohol ink mixative.  The Tim Holtz clip was also painted with the mixative and I  also applied the mixative to the bead caps which started out life silver toned.  The flourish is from Boss Kut.  The sentiment is from one of my all-time favorite SU! stamp sets - Happy Harmony.  A scrap of crinkled seam binding and natural hemp finished the card off.


Thanks again for visiting this morning.  Hope to see you back again soon.  And thanks, as always, for the lovely comments you leave.  I am trying to visit everyone's blogs once a week or so to repay the favor.  Have a great weekend.

Challenges Entered:

My Partner in Crafting Crime - Something New (first time I've used this SU!  stamp)

Polycraft Monday Challenge - New

4 Crafty Chicks - Show Us Some Metal

Stampin' B's - Use a Die Cut

Sugar Creek Hallow - Fab Fabric (used crinoline in the flower)

Flourishes Bring Back Beauty - The Beauty of Vintage

A Little Late Victorian Sparkle

Hi folks,

I feel like a delinquent blogger.  I haven't been posting much and I've missed you all!  I know I haven't updated my challenge lists in over a week.  I have been so busy with my little part-time job for my Catholic parish, which is supposed to be 20 hours a week.  Hahaha!  Since the end of November I have been working double that and last week it was tripple that number of hours, including 20 over the weekend.  I'm exhausted, my house is a disaster and Christmas is about to steam roll over me!  No time for making cards or blogging either.  So last night when I got home from work at 8:30 p.m., I chose to do some house cleaning instead of my card for Our Creative Corner.  I was expecting my daughter home from college around midnight and wanted to make the house look a little better when she came through the door. 

I got up this morning and finished my card.  Here it is.  Our lovely host Sarah Gough has designed a wonderful sketch for you to follow for our challenge this week.  I love this sketch and think it will be one that I use again - such pretty layers!  I used a bit of my retired (hoarded) Blue Bayou with some Basic Grey DP and a Spellbinders die to create the snowflake.  Two different SU sets were used to stamp snowflakes with white craft ink and the tiny snowflakes are from a Martha border punch.  The sentiment and the Victorian ornament are from Prairie Fairy and the flower and the crinkle ribbon were hand dyed using Rose Red reinker.  Some Rock Candy distress stickles and Crystal Effects finished it off. 

Thanks so much for stopping by.  I'm sorry I haven't been around to visit anyone in the past few weeks.  Don't give up on me.  I'll be back with more regularity after Christmas. 

Blessings and hugs,

Beautiful Fall Colors

Oh, the colors of fall.  Can any other season truly compare?  Such a beautiful time of year and we are celebrating the season this week at Our Creative Corner. It's a new month and we have a new hostess, Diane Gilbert of My Little Stampin' Spot.  She has a beautiful fall color challenge for us.  Use the colors Old Olive, More Mustard, Cajun Craze and Early Expresso or the closest match you have.  For my card, I substituted Really Rust for Cajun Craze and Chocolate Chip for Early Expresso (note to self:  be sure to order the new SU colors!).  While I was noodling ideas for this week's card, I happened to stop by Isabella's Sketchbook and lo and behold, Isabella has some new fall digital images that are splendid!  That made me very happy because I seem to be bored with all my existing fall images.  You gotta love the instant gratification of purchaing digis too.  In all of about 2 minutes I was printing this delight and ready to color it up. 

The image was colored with Copics and UTEE with some Heirloom Gold Perfect Pearls mixed in was randomly embossed around the edge then Vintage Photo DI was sponged over it.  The border flourish and sentiment are from the Celebration of Thanks set by Verve.  The leaf is a Cuttlebug die that I had fun dying with Old Olive and Really Rust with a little Perfect Pearls/DI mixture spritzed on for glimmer.  I really love the way this one came out.  I think the image is gorgeous and I was so pleased with the way it colored up. 

So have you already stopped by Our Creative Corner to see what they other designers have for your beautiful fall colors inspiration?  If not, hope you will take time to stroll through their cards and enjoy the crisp fall feeling they provide. 

Products Used:

Stamps:  Apples & Pumpkins by Isabella's Sketchbook, Celebration of Thanks by Verve

Paper:  Really Rust, More Mustard, Old Olive, Chocolate Chip, DP is Auturm Thyme Again Add On Pack (currently a freebie) (andI changed the color slightly in PSE to make it more of a mustard color)

Ink:  Walnut Stain and Vintage Photo distress inks, Versamark

Accessories:  Vintage Wallpaper Embossing Folder from SU, Spellbinders Tag Die and Mega Rectangles, Cuttlebug Leaf Die, Old Olive Ribbon rom SU, Tim Holts mini safety pin, hemp rope, Ultra Thick Embossing Enammel, Heirloom Gold Perfect Pearls, Vintage Photo reinker

Thanks so much for stopping by and for all your wonderfully encouraging comments.  Wishing you a wonderful fall weekend!

Blessings & hugs,

Challenges Entered:
Sentimental Sundays - Let's See Some Dimension
Stamptacular Sunday - Seasons Change
Incy Wincy - I Wonder What it Could Be (anything goes)
Ditital Tuesday - Thank You/Give Thanks + a digi
Tuesday Taggers - Here Comes Autumn
For Fun Challenges -  Fall, No Halloween
Simon Says Stamp - It's Autumn
If the Shoe Fits - Orange
Stampin' for the Weekend - Autumn Inspiration
Flourishes Timeless Tuesday - Fall/Harvest theme using the colors of green, brown, orange/russet and cream
Speedy the Cat Friend's Challenge - Buttons & Bows

School Days, School Days, Dear Old Golden Rule Days

Wow, I can hardly believe that it has rolled around to Saturday again. Where does the time go? Now it's back-to-school time pretty much all over the U.S.A. so we will be seeing a lot of school themed challenges popping up. And that's our theme this week at Our Creative Corner. There are lots of cute school images available, but of course I had to slant my creation towards the vintage mode. I had my card designed and ready to start assembling when I saw this delightful vintage schoolgirl image over at Digital Two for Tuesday. I immediately switched images and used this one. And so it goes...another vintage card for your inspiration.

You may have seen these vintage A-B-C flash cards here previously. Earlier this year, when I was on Sugar Creek Hollow design team I made cards with them featuring the flash cards (full size) as the main image. One thing that has really sold me on digital images is that you can resize them, thus making them highly flexible. For this project, I wanted the DP to show though so it worked best to make them miniture size in relation to the rest of the images. The apple, which was colored with Copics and coated with Tim Holtz Rock Candy Distress Stickles was also resized and used from the A flashcard. I created the slate (chalk board) by sponging white pigment ink across it first so it looked like a blackboard that had been erased, then stamping the sentiment in white pigment ink. I used a piece of woodgrain paper from Cosmo Cricket and cut it out to look like the wood frame of a slate.

When I was growing up, I was fortunate enough to be able to spend a great deal of time with my grandmother who talked to me about certain things in her life. She used to sing old songs to me , one of which was the "School Days" song that I titled this post after. She loved what I called antiques, but to her were probably just things that she grew up with and were familiar to her. She had an old student desk from the early 1900's that she let me sit in and use as well as the chalkboards she called slates. I feel like my grandmother might have been very similar to the girl in this picture. I thought a lot about her when making this card and am dedicating it to her memory. I don't keep very many of my cards, but ths one feels special to me and I am going to display it in my studio. Okay, so enough about my flashbacks, here's the dets on the card.

Products Used:
Stamps: Ornamental Frames from Inkadinkado, sentiment from Rubbernecker, ABC flash cards from Sugar Creek Hollow
Ink: Creamy Caramel, Tim Holtz Vintage Photo DI, Ranger Adirondack Pigment Ink Pad Snow Cap White, Versamark
Paper: Very Vanilla, Love Letter DP from SU, Cosmo Cricket Slue Foot Sue from the Wanted line (another fav CC DP!)
Accessories: Clear EP, Tim Holtz Rock Candy Stickles, sewing machine

That's it for today. Hope you will stop by Our Creative Corner to see the rest of the DT's samples and play along in our back-to-school challenge.

Challenges Entered:

Stamping Vacation - Very Vintage/Anything Faded

Bunny Zoe's Crafts - Vintage

Paper Playtime - School Days

Paper Cutz - Back to School

Stampin' for the Weekend - Back to School

A Delicious Color Challenge

Thanks so much for dropping by today! It's time for another challenge at Our Creative Corner. This week we have a delicioius color challenge for you. Summertime makes our hostess, Jennifer Meyer, think of watermelons and inspired her challenge colors - green, red, black and white. I was a bit stumped so I surfed the challenge blogs and decided on the Mojo Mondays #148 sketch which really did jumpstart my mojo! This is the result and honestly I had so much fun developing my sample for this challenge. There was something very satisfying in working with these colors. Maybe because I love watermelon and agree with Jennifer that it can't really be summer until you have had your first watermelon - LOL!

Let's get on to the details:
Sentiment: Raindrop Echo Designs (not sure if this one is available, I picked it up as a freebie on the Sentimental Sundays blog a few weeks ago)
Paper: Designer Digitals - Jessie's New Day Paper Pack and the red print is from Designer Digitals Krafty Elegance but I changed the cream and black to two shades of red with my PhotoShop Elements, Stampin' Up! Basic Black, Riding Hood Red, Whisper White
Spellbinder Dies: Classic Circle and Fleur De Lis Pendants
Other: Martha Stewart border punch, KaiserCraft half pearls, Versamark & clear embossing powder, Creamy Caramel and Frayed Burlap ink for distressing, sewing machine.

Questions? If you have any questions on products or techniques, leave me a question in the Comments section and check back later for my updated post to include that information.

Now it's time to hop on over to Our Creative Corner and check out the rest of the beautiful green, red, black and white creations. And while you are surfing, stop by the blogs of the rest of the OCC design team and leave them an encouraging word.

♥Wendy Jensen♥Dana Grothaus♥Diane Gilbert♥Jennifer Meyer♥Julie LeBlanc♥Sarah Gough♥Lori Rider♥

Wishing you a wonderful weekend!

Blessings & hugs,

Challenges Entered:

Mojo Monday #148 - Sketch

Creative Cottage Challenge - Touchy Feely

Beach Days!

We're kicking off a new month at Our Creative Corner and yours truly is the hostess. I set up the challenges several months ago and for this week I chose summer inspiration. I've had a look around the blogosphere and see that great minds think alike and there are several other similar themed challeges this week. Actually, for the OCC challenge, I am asking you to harken back to the days of your youth and make a card inspired by what summer was like for you back then. Here in the U.S.A., we have summer icons such as seasonal foods (think hot dogs, watermelon and ice cream), activies such as vacations, swimming and summer sports, celebrations such as family reunions, and the list goes on.

I actually had this card/post from last year in mind and wanted to do something similar, something more evocative of my growning up years, but my mojo has been riding me hard all week on the beach theme and it wasn't giving up until I produced one more. You see, my DH and I are getting ready to spend some serious time in Key West this summer starting with a 10 day stint beginning on June 18th. My SIL and her DH have rented a four-bedroom house for a month and we're invited to spend as much time there as we want to - or as much time as we can take off work - LOL. It's only a three hour drive for us so we plan to do the first 10 days and then probably long weekends for the rest of the time. We are super excited. We did this last year and had an absolute blast!! So two weeks from today we'll be rockin' on down to the Conch Republic, the island of beaches, sunsets and Margaritaville.

But enough of my vacation dreaming, I think you probably came here to learn about my OCC DT card for this week. It's the second one this week I have made with Flourishes Beach Life and Seaside Life sets. The hibiscus is from Stampendous. DP is My Mind's Eye Breaking Free. The letters were cut with the Cuttlebug Oliva alphabet dies. Most coloring was done with Copics, but the sea was sponged with SU inks.

Be sure to stop by Our Creative Corner and see what other summer inspired treasures the DT has to get your mojo cranked up. I can't wait to see where it leads YOU this week. We'd also love to have you visit all of our teamies' blogs. Here are the links to make it easy for you.

♥Wendy Jensen♥Dana Grothaus♥Diane Gilbert♥Jennifer Meyer♥Julie LeBlanc♥Sarah Gough♥Lori Rider♥

Thanks for stopping by today! Hope you are a wonderful weekend.

Blessings & hugs,

Challenges entered:

Paper Cutz - Vacation Theme

Raise the Bar - Celebrate Summer

Stampin' for the Weekend - Summer/Travel theme

Papertake Weekly - Fun, Fun, Fun

Busy Beauties Creation Station - Anything Goes