Peace and Joy

What a long and exhausting week I have had - so much overtime and so little crafting time.  And way too long between posts!  So I am happy to be back today for Fairy Fun Friday with a card I made with one of the Prairie Fairy"s beautiful new digital Christmas images.  This one is called Christmas Doves and comes with a full set of sentiments too.  There are several other vintage type Christmas fairy sets available to so be sure to check out the Seasonal section of the store. 

Our challenge theme this wee is Buttons & Bows.  I decided  to go with a white-on-white theme for this card.  The edges of the bottom layer of white have been glittered with Star Dust Stickles and the next layer up embssed with the SU Petals A-Plenty embossing folder.  The die cuts that the doves are perched on and the sentiment is on are from the Spellbinders Shapeabilities Lattice set.  A label punch from SU was used to punch the vellum piece that  the sentiment is on and Stickles were lightly applied around the edge.  The buttons were embossed with silver EP and the Stickled flourish was cut with a BossKut die.  The fabric flower was made by cutting four shapes from crinoline with the Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die.  I wet it with plain water, scrunched it and dryed it with my heat tool, dabbed on a bit of glue here and there and sprinkled SU Dazzling Diamons glitter over it.  I've had that pretty clear plastic and silver button in my stash forever - knew someday I would find a use for it!  The flower sits atop a large bow made of white tulle - sorry you can't see it too well in the photo. 

Now that you 've seen my card, hop on over to the Fairy Fun Friday blog to see what the other design team members have to show.  I had a peek at some really beautiful samples that you are going to love!

Thanks so much for stopping by today.  Hope you have a marvelous day!

Blessings & hugs,

Challenges Entered:
Crafty Cardmakers - Dry Embossing
Polycraft Monday Challenge - A Glittery Christmas
Digital Tuesday - Anything With Wings
Tuesday Taggers - Peace, Love and Joy
Tuesday Throwdown - Buttons and Bows
Crafts and Me Challenge - Glitter
CCEE Stampers - Buttons
MelJen's - Sparkle and Shine
PaperPlay Challenges - Let it Snow
If the Shoe Fits - Tickle Me with Tinsel
Paper Cutz - Lots of Bling
Top Tip Tuesday - Buttons Galore!

No Buttons or Bows - Flourishes Timeless Tuesday Guest Designer

Several weeks ago I received an email from Betty Wright asking if I would like to be this week's guest host at Flourishes Timeless Tuesday.  Would I....humm, let me see...only in my wildest dreams - LOL!!!  Of course, my fingers were shaking on the keyboard when I typed my acceptance!

And now it is time for Flourishes Timeless Tuesday Challenge (FTTC90)!  It is the last Tuesday of the month when they have a guest challenge host.  This month's guest is YOURS TRULY!!!  I am challenging you to Anything Goes But Buttons and Bows.  There are so many wonderful embellishments to use for accents on our paper crafts, but all too often we fall back on our old favorites.  This week, let's stretch ourselves and see how creative we can be embellishing our cards.  We want to see what you can do without using buttons or bows.  Keep in mind that ribbon is still allowed along with lace and twine.  It's the bows and the buttons that are not.  We'd love to see what you create!

Flourishes has so many gorgeous stamps, but I am very partial to their fruit stamps.  I chose to work with the largest bunch of cherries from the Cherries and Peaches set.  In keeping with my autumn mindset, I kept the colors dark, rich earth tones.  And of course, I made it in my signature style - distressed vintage!  My main panel, layered over several pieces of K&Co. DP, is Flourishes Classic White cardstock, which I love for coloring with Copics.  The image was stamped in Memento ink and colored with  Copic markers. Then it was masked and a script stamp was overstamped in Old Paper DI.   I randomly embossed a mixture of UTEE/Heirloom Gold Perfect Pearls to give it just a hit of gold tone.  All of my main embellishments were cut with dies from Flourishes Classic Ivory cardstock, sponged with Antique Linen DI and then double embossed with clear UTEE.  I was going for sort of a country enamel look, which I think I achieved.  The flower was handmade and dyed with several colors of inks to try to match the cherries.  The jewely end caps were squashed into a Versamark pad and then gold embossed.   

Inside Panel With Space To Write

The inside panel has also been finished off leaving a blank panel to write a special message.  I stamped the cherries again in Antique Linen and the script very lightly with Old Paper. 

I hope you will stop by the Flourishes blog as well as the other designers personal blogs.  I'm so excited to be working with this elite group of designers this week! 

Dee

Silke

Maki

Betty

Barbara

Cindy

Thanks for stopping by to share my little bit of excitement this morning.  Have a great day!

Blessings & hugs,

Challenges Entered:

Sentimental Sundays - Distressing with a sentiment on the front

Charisma Cards - Vintage

Alphabet Challenge - Z is for Zig Zags

Frosted Designs - Let's See Your Die Cuts

Good Witch or Bad Witch?

Whew, what a week this has been.  I have been so slammed with overtime at work and really scrambling to try to make design deadlines.  The week has just flown by and I can't believe it's Saturday again!  So here I am back with you again to show you what I have made for Our Creative Corner.  This week, Diane Gilbert, our October hostess, has cooked up a color challenge for us that just smacks of Halloween.  She is asking us to use Pumpkin Pie, Certainly Celery, Rich Razzleberry and Early Expresso or our closest match.  Can you believe it?   I had all of those card stock colors. 

So those are the colors of card stock used here, plus I added some old Daisy D's designer paper.  I used this cute vintage witch image from The Graphics Fairy but I altered the colors in my PhotoShop Elements.  Here is the vintage image so you can see how she started out. 

I started out trying to make her skirt green to coordinate with Certainly Celery by changing the hue on the entire graphic.  So when the skirt changed color, so did her skin and hair - LOL!  I decided I liked her with green hair and skin which begged the question - with green hair and skin, is she a good witch or a bad witch?  You decide - I had fun with PhotoShop and got a much-needed giggle out of making this card. 



What else did I use? A couple of Spellbinders dies - Long Rectangles and Scalloped Rectangles plus Lattice Borderabilities, some orange glitter, a Tim Holtz ticket stamp, Stampin' Up! spider web embossing folder, Vintage Photo distress ink, hand dyed shabby seam binding and a couple of orange and green rhinestones from the $1 bin at Michael's. 

Hope you like my vintage witch card.  Thanks for any comment you care to leave.  Please stop by the Our Creative Corner blog to see what my team mates have made and maybe think about playing along this week.  Have a great weekend.

Blessings & hugs,

Linda

Challenges Entered:
Crazy4Challenges - Halloween
Drunken Stampers - Halloween
Speedy the Cat's Friends Challenge - Use a Punch or a Die Cut
Totally Gorjuss - Sparkle
The Crazy Challenge - Halloween
Oh La La Creations - Scary Stuff
Stamp With Fun - Halloween
Crafts & Me Challenges - Halloween
Creative Cottage Challenge - Halloween
Creative Imaginations - Spooky
C.R.A.F.T. Challenge - Spooky
Stampin' for the Weekend - Halloween/Fall

Thankful for Fishing!

It's another Fairy Fun Friday and I'm here to share my design team card with you.  Our challenge to you this fortnight is "Tag or Ticket".  You can make a card with a tag or ticket or simply make a tag.  You don't have to use a Prairie Fairy digital image, but we love it when you do!  We just hope you will play along with us in this fun challenge.

I got a bit carried away with layers on my card - eight in all and that's just on the outside.  I finished off the inside with another five layers.  This is such a heavy and rich-feeling card.  I decided to to a little fancy work with a Spellbinders border die, cutting four borders and piecing them together and assembling them on a square of Close to Cocoa CS.  That was followed by a double layer of CS and DP popped up on a layer of craft foam.  Then on top of that another double layer consisting of CS and CP, both upper panels stitched together.  I used the SU photo corner punch, which I dragged out of the bottom of my equipment drawer, and subjected the corners to the same UTEE/Perfect Pearls random embossing that I have used on my last two Prairie Fairy cards.  I guess I'm getting into a rut with that, but I really like how it looks and think it makes an excellent masculine style embellishment.  The image is a Prairie Fairy digi, printed on Flourishes white CS and colored with Copics.  I was experimenting with creating a sunset sky with the dots and blobs I've been using, but really didn't like it until I sponged with with Creamy Caramel ink to give it some distressing.  That filled in all the light areas, blurred and mellowed the sky and now I am quite happy with it - LOL.

I took the time to finish off the inside of the card with coordinating DPs, styles and embellishments.  I stamped the SU stamp Give Thanks on the tag, but if I decided not to use it for Thanksgiving, I can change out the tag and make it a birthday or some other occasion card.

So that's my card for Fairy Fun Friday this time around.  I hope I have inspired you to play along with the design team and will look forward to seeing your entry into our challenge!  I hope you will take time to visit the blogs of the other designers too. 

Products Used:
Stamps:  Gone Fishin' by the Prairie Fairy, SU Holiday Best (for sentiment) and leaf flourish is Inkadinkado
Paper:  SU CS - Naturals White, Close to Cocoa and Always Artichoke, Flourishes White CS for main panel and digital DP from Little Scrap Garden, Kallee paper pack
Ink:  Versamark, Copics, Vintage Photo and Creamy Caramel for distressing, Walnut Stain DI for stamping
Accessories:  Spellbinders Lattice Borderabilites, Labels One Nestabilities, SU Photo Corner Punch, SU brad, jewelry spacers, gold half pearls from Michaels

Thanks so much for stopping by today.  I do so appreciate your comments.

Blessings & hugs,

Challenges Entered:
Stamptacular Sunday - Layer It Up
Oh La La Creations - Nothing Floral
Dutch Dare Card Challenge - Tagalicious
All That Scraps - Manly Cards

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

Maid of the Harvest

It's so great to be back again with another Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge. It's been almost two weeks since our last challenge because of the joint blog hop with our sister site. Now Simon Says Stamp and Show is ready to challange you to show us your best grunge work. That's right, the theme this week is "Your Grunge". How cool is that - grunge any way you like it. Should make a lot of creative hearts happy this week! It sure made me happy...I am never happier than when I am ripping, tearing, inking and generally making something look old and grungy.

Being in an autumnal harvest sort of mood, I went searching for something to fit that frame of mind and found this wonderful vintage image of a girl with a basket of something...veggies, fruit?? Anyway she sort of looked like a harvester. I distressed her up with Vintage Photo ink and a bit of my homemade vintage glimmer mist, mounted her on a tag that I ran through the Tim Holtz Collage Texture Fade and likewise distressed. The DP is from my growing digital paper files (don't remember the source) and mounted on a panel of Always Artichoke. The bottom panel is Very Vanilla stamped with the floral flourish stamp from Flights of Fancy with Vintage Photo ink. I cut the border with Spellbinders Borderabilities Fleur De Lis die and embossed it with Tim Holtz Distress Embossing Powder in Vintage Photo - love that stuff with its cool rusted color and texture! I typed "Maid of the Harvest" and printed it out, cut it with a Spellbinders tag die and again used the Vintage Photo Distress EP. I don't know what I'm going to do with this little gem, but I really like it and have enjoyed having it displayed in my craft room this week.

I hope you will stop by the blogs of my incredibly talented team mates to see what else they've been up to lately. I promise you it will be time well spent.

♥Linda Elbourne, DT Coordinator - A Crafting Journey
♥ Dan - My Crafty Life
♥ Lynne Forsythe - The Next Best Thing
♥ Lori Hassler - I Been Thinkin'...'Bout Inkin'
♥ Nancy Crissinger - What's Next???
♥ Nancy Wethington - Art From the Heart
♥ Terry Weitsma-Girbes - Terry's Cards & Creativity
♥ Katie Davis - Chantilly Rose
♥ Kim Costello - Paperbabe

Thanks for stopping by today. Can't wait to see Your Grunge over on the Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge blog.

Blessings & hugs,

Teapot in Teal

Well, another week is almost over and we are at the threshold of the weekend. That means it's time for us to show our stuff over at Fairy Fun Friday. This week our challenge is to use a circle frame. Just the idea of a frame to me conjures up a vintage image in my mind so that's the direction I went in. I made faux chipboard by cutting three layers of cardstock with my Spellbinders dies (three layers glued together because the Spellbinders dies are not deep enough to cut real chipboard - darn!). Then I painted it with Picket Fence crackle paint. But alas, when I opened my crackle paint, it was rather dried up so I added a bit of water. I have done this successfully before, but this time I added too much water and it was runny. It didn't really set up and crackle nicely. I decided to paint over it with Vintage Photo crackle paint and this is the result. I like it - very interesting cracks. I also sponged the edges with Vintage Photo DI. I made up the sentiment myself and printed it on my computer on a scrap of DP. A Spellbinders Fancy Tags die was used to create the filagree background for the sentiment and again used to create the element in the upper left corner. The teapot, a Prairie Fairy image, was printed on Neenah Solar White and colored with Copics. I decided the top half of the image circle was too bare so I printed out a bunch more flowers from the teapot, cut them out and mounted them inside the frame. Under the frame is a strip of Bermuda Bay CS, stamped with the Scrip stamp with Vintage Photo, edges sponged and then the strip was pleated, a eyelet was set in each side and a scrap of shabby seam binding tied through. I love the earthy feel to this piece and now I just need to figure out who to give it to.

Products Used:

Stamps: Tea Time by The Prairie Fairy, SU Script background stamp, sentiment computer generated

Paper: DP - K&Co., CS by SU - Bermuda Bay and Chocolate Chip

Ink: Printer Ink, Creamy Caramel, Vintage Photo DI and Copics

Dies/Punches: Spellbinders Classic Circles and Scallops & Fancy Tags

Accessories: Bead caps purchased on eBay, shabby seam binding purchased on Etsy, sewing machine.

Thanks so much for stopping by. I hope to see you this week over at Fairy Fun Friday. Please stop by and say hello to the other wonderful designers on this team:

♥Margreet - Margreet's Scrapcards ♥Suzi - Sugar n Spice♥Viv - Crafting Haven♥ Hege-Annie - Hege-Annie's Paper {He}Art++ ♥Ann - Raindrop Echo Designs ♥Carla - Carla's Corner ♥Corry - Fancy Free 4Ever ♥Lori - Just Ducky ♥Kelly - Kelly's Kreative Korner♥Trisha - T-Bear's Touch ♥Sue - Arty's♥

Blessings & peace,

It's a Boy Thing!

Yay, it's Friday! And that means another challenge from Prairie Fairy! That's right, hop on over to Fairy Fun Friday and check out the challenge and the DT inspiration. The challenge is "For the Boys". That's right, we always need more guy cards! I made mine pretty generic. It could be used for a birthday or some other occasion. I think it would be great just for inspiration for a young man. I was thinking of sending it to my son who had his 27th birthday last week. I was on vacation and never got a card made for him. This could be a belated birthday card. I think he would like it and I was thinking of him while I was creating this card.

Before I left for vacation, I was trying to alter a bathing suit I had purchased that didn't fit just right and I BROKE MY SEWING MACHINE. Can you imagine? The first time I have tried to sew on cloth in probably two years and the cloth was too thick. I heard a bad "thunk" and then the needle wouldn't go all the way down. I worked on it awhile last night to no avail so I ended up stitching this card by hand using some old, old crochet thread from my grandmother's sewing box. I actually like the way it turned out - very rustic looking but it is NOT something I want to do all the time. I dropped the machine off today at a local repair shop and am hoping to get it back in a week or so.

After using cork for the OCC challenge last week, I fell in love with it and here it is again! I think you may see it frequently until I get sick of it! It's really great for embellishing male-oriented cards. It adds some pizzaz without being girly. The image is called Pokin Puddles by the Prairie and the sentiment is from Raindrop Echo Designs. The image was colored with Copics and cut out with a Spellbinders label die. The cardstock and twill tape are from SU, the DP from Cosmo Cricket and the stars DP was someting from a local craft shop that I purchased about 10 years ago. The buttons are from Jo-Ann's and the brad from SU.

Here are the blog links for the Fairy Fun Friday design team. I hope you will pay them a visit this week and let them know how fabulous their work is! And be sure to stop by the blog and play along with us this week!

♥Margreet - Margreet's Scrapcards

♥Suzi - Sugar n Spice

♥Viv - Crafting Haven

♥ Hege-Annie - Hege-Annie's Paper {He}Art++

♥Ann - Raindrop Echo Designs

♥Carla - Carla's Corner

♥Corry - Fancy Free 4Ever

♥Lori - Just Ducky

♥Kelly - Kelly's Kreative Korner

♥Tonya - Stamp Happens

♥Trisha - T-Bear's Touch

♥Sue - Arty's♥

Thanks for stopping by. Hope you have a relaxing, sun filled weekend!

Challenges Entered:

Incy Wincy Designs - Distress It

My Time to Craft - Butterfly Bliss

Tuesday Throwdown - Stitching

Flutter By Wednesday - Use 3 layers and a fairy, angel or butterfy

Dare You to Digi Stamp - Stitching

Res-Q-Challenge - Don't be anemic, eat a hamburger (use red)

Stamp Something - Something Digital (both the image and sentiment are digital)

C.R.A.F.T. Challenge - Babies/Children

Posies 'n Punches

Hello and happy Wednesday! I'm so glad to be back among my blogging buddies! I was away for another long weekend in Key West. This was family weekend with all my DH's sisters and their DHs. Too many people and too fast-paced to be relaxing, but it was still great to spend time with the family. But now I am back -no more long weekends until the fall football season rolls around. I'm just starting to get back into the card-making groove and have a lot to catch up on.

I managed to get this card finished for this week's Isabella's Sketchbook challenge before I left so it was already "in the can". Our challenge this week is another easy one - use punches. I have been fascinated lately by Becca Feeken's amazing use of punches amd wanted to try more of her right angle punching. So I made this two-layer element according to her video tutorial and a Martha Stewart corner punch. I thought it was too plain so I wrapped it with vintage crinkled seam binding and added buttons. The image, Flower Song, is relatively new in Isabella's boutique. I decided to give it a vintage flavor with the retired Parisian Summer SU papers and Creamy Caramel sponging. It was colored with Copics and the sentiment was made up on my computer, which was then cut with a Spellbinders tag die. Let me know if you need any more information on anything here.

Now that you've had a peek at my DT card, I hope you will stop by the rest of the teams' blogs and pick up a little inspiration.

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

Thanks so much for stopping by today and for any comments you care to leave.

Blessings & hugs,

Challenges Entered:
Mark's Finest Papers - Use Punches
Paper Sundaes - Lots of Layers
Papertake Weekly - In the Garden
Stampin' Bees - Polka Dots

Truly Scrumptious - How Does Your Garden Grow?

Your Next Stamp - Flower Power

For Fun - Use Your Fav Coloring Medium - no die cuts as main image

Cork-a-Doodle-Do

Good morning, friends! Isn't this a wonderful wake-up call? I sincerely love this rooster from Isabella's Sketchbook. But first let's talk about the really cool challenge this week over at Our Creative Corner. Our fab hostess (and blog owner), Jennifer Meyer, has a wonderful challenge for us - use cork on your card. What a blast I had using this new media! The cork I purchased was from Michael's and came in sheets for around $7 a pack. It is very thin and works perfectly with your die cut machines. I started with this wonderful Rise and Shine image from Isabella's Sketchbook and the found a perfect match in a sentiment from Raindrop Echo Designs. (Don't you just love it when everything just seems to fall into place?)

There's not a lot more I can tell you about this card, but here goes. The digital image was colored with Copics on Flourishes card stock. The hearts were cut with a Cuttlebug die and the cork wings were traced on the cork from a Tim Holtz Grundgeboard set (I had already used the wings so I traced from the negative impression) and cut out. I honestly don't remember where the winged heart brad and the feather charm were from. The DP is again from a fav digital DP seller Designer Digitals. I'm sure there are lots of other details so if I have missed anything that you are dying to know, please leave a comment and I will update this post with the answer.

This type of funky collage card art is one of my favorites so I had a great time playing around with it. Now I hope you will stop by Our Creative Corner and see that the other designers have made to inspire you to use cork. And maybe you could stop by their individual blogs too. Here's their links to make it easy!

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

♥Julie LeBlanc♥Sarah Gough♥Lori Rider♥

Thanks again for stopping by. Hope to see you over at Our Creative Corner!

Blessings & hugs,

Challenges Entered:

Charisma Cardz - Watch the Birdie

Dare You to Digi - The Great Outdoors

Digi Doodle Shop's Best - Texture

Fresh Brewed Designs - Summertime

My Crafting Partner in Crime - Summertime

Craft Your Passion - Stitching

Artful Inkables - Stitching

Celebrating Life!

Hello and welcome to my Wednesday post for Isabella's Sketchbook. This week's challenge is "Anything Goes" combined with an Isabella's Sketchbook image. We thought it would be a great week to relax, kick back and enjoy the summer. So check your inventory of Isabella's Sketchbook images, pick one out and have a go. You could win two of Isabella's delightful images. The one I used is called Cup Stack and I don't believe it's available yet. I digitally paper pieced it, including the background of the image panel using the Sweet Violets digital paper pack from Designer Digitals. I used this week's Mojo Monday sketch and also lined the colors up with this week's Just For Fun Color Challenge which is to use purple, green and blue.

The die cuts were cut with a Cuttlebug die, the embossing folder used was from Stampin' Up! I used two different Spellbinders dies, the sentiment was a lovely freebie from Ann Vento at Raindrop Echo Designs/Sentimental Sundays Challenge. You can buy her digital sentiments from Whimsey Stamps. The mini library clip is from SU and the button is from Jo-Ann's.

Let me know if you have any questions or need more information.

Now it's time to stop by Isabella's Sketchbook Challenge Blog and the blogs of my teamies. I do so hope you will be able to play along with us this week!

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

Thanks so much for stopping by today. Have a wonderful Wednesday!

Blessings & hugs,

Fun With Die Cuts

Good moring friends! I'm so happy you stopped by this morning to check out my sample for the Creative Card Crew challenge. This week, Jen is our hostess and she has challenged us to use die cuts on our creations. We all love our dies and die cutting machines, don't we? So this should be a fun challenge for everyone and I'm looking forward to seeing what you all can do.

Our sponsor this week is Simon Says Stamp and they have offered a generous prize - a $20 gift certificate. So that should be a great incentive for you to join in our To Die For challenge!

My sample was made using one of the JustRite stamps I won earlier this spring. I'm not sure why I ended up with so much red in this card, but I really like it. I started with the K&Co. DP and since the one paper had some red in it, I decided on red for my die cut and everything got out of hand from there. I was working on it on the 4th of July so maybe I had red on the brain or maybe because it rained here in Miami all of the holiday weekend I felt the need to brighten things up. Red is my favorite color so when my mojo headed in that direction, I just let it run wild.

All the layers in the center medallion were cut with various Spellbinder dies. I'm not going to name them all here, but if you can't identify one, let me know and I'll do an update at the bottom of this post. The flowers are from Prima, the buttons from Foo-fa-la and the clip is from the SU Hodge Podge Hardware. I bought the gorgeous red crinkle ribbon on Etsy. That's about it - nothing tough or involved on this one. Just a lot of cool die cuts!

Please be sure to stop by the Creative Card Crew blog to check out the wonderful samples from the rest of the team. And sometime over the next two weeks, I'll be looking for your To Die For card linked to the challenge!

As always, thanks for stopping by and for all the lovely comments.

Blessings & hugs,

Challenges Entered:

Little Red Wagon - Use Nestabilities

Thank You, Dad

Welcome back to my third post of the day. Are you tired of me yet? LOL!! It's been a super busy week for me, getting ready to leave for vacation. By the time you read this pre-scheduled post, I will probably already be in Key West. We planned to leave at 8:00 a.m. and it's only a three-hour drive. So while I unpack my bathing suit and get ready to hit the pool, you can read about my last Father's Day card of the year. This one was made for Fairy Fun Friday, the Prairie Fairy's challenge blog. Our challenge this week is to make a Father's Day card. This image is actually called Me 'n' My Grampa, but I elected to use it as a Dad card. Rather than color it up, I changed the lines to brown and printed it at 65% opacity, effectively using it as a background to the sentiment. The sentiment was made up by yours truly and printed on my computer.

Details: Chocolate Chip, Creamy Caramel and Basic Black card stock. Houndstooth paper is called World Traveler-Old Coat by Heidi Swapp and the pinstripe DP is called Floral Mocha Paperie by making Memories. A Martha Stewart boarder punch was used to make the double layer border panel. Spellbinders Labels One and Five dies were used for the center panel. The black brads are just stock brads from Jo-Ann's and the chipboard letters were cut with the Cuttlebug Oliva alphabet. I hand wrote the "Love you!" note which is held up by a mini clip from SU.

Hope you enjoyed all three of my creations today. Thanks so much for stopping by. Hope you will come back tomorrow to see what I have made for this week's Our Creative Corner challenge.

Blessings & hugs,

Glitz and Glitter - A Challenge for You!

Do we ever have a fun challenge for you this week at Fairy Fun Friday. It's all about glitz and glitter so get your bling on and come on over! It's that easy - no special image to use or sketch to follow - just bling it up to your heart's content. You can win 5 free images from the Prairie Fairy.

Here is my glitzy card to share. It uses the darling Tip Toe Fairy image from Prairie Fairy. Isn't she sweet? I'm not usually big on over-glitzy cards, but I have to admit I had fun with this one and like the way it turned out. It has just enough vintage appeal to please me. The paper is K&Co. and is glittered. I used a base of Groovy Guava and layered a piece of Very Vanilla over it which I had stamped around the edge with a text stamp and a flourish to give it some interest. I distressed the edges and sponged them with a combination of Frayed Burlap and Grovy Guava ink. The rhinestones are from Prima and I used two Spellbinders dies for the center medallion. Lots of craft foam was used to pop up the many layers. Any questions? Leave them in the comments and then check back to read my response.

Hope you'll join in the fun with us the week at Fairy Fun Friday. And take a few minutes to stop by the blogs of the other team mebers and leave them some love!

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

Thanks so much for stopping by to see what I made for Fairy Fun Friday. I so appreciate your comments.

Blessings & hugs

Challenges Entered:

MelJen's - Sparkle, Glitter, Bling

No. 1 Dad

Hello and welcome to my Fabulous Friday post for Sugar Creek Hollow. This week, the DT was challenged to make a Father's Day card. I used the Father's Day set from Sugar Creek Hollow. It's a great set and a great deal - you get four images for $5 at the Sugar Creek Hollow store.

The card stock used here is Really Rust and Mellow Moss. The DP is from the Cosmo Cricket Outlaw pack. I was trying to remember where I got the twine and I think I picked it up at the food pantry I run. I believe it was used to fasten a crate of green beans together - LOL!! I snag anything I think can have a second life on one of my cards. It sure did come in handy to give this card an authentic western feel. I bought those star brads at a LSS when I first stared stamping. They've been hanging aroiund in my stash for at least 10 years and I've used them maybe twice before - not a great purchase, but came in handy here. I used a Spellbinders Nestability for the wanted sign and the poster was printed on my printer and distressed with Frayed Burlap distress ink. I printed the #1 Dad badge on SU gold paper and really wasn't happy with the way it looked, but couldn't really find anything better in my extensive stash so I went with it.

That about wraps up the details on this one. Let me know if you have any questions. Hope you will stop by the Sugar Creek Hollow store and pick up your Friday Freebie. Don't delay, they are only available for a week.

Thanks so much for stopping by. Hope to see you again real soon!

Blessings & hugs,

Challenges Entered:

The Shabby Tea Room - Just for Dad

Cards for Men - Father's Day

My Partner in Crafting Crime - Show Papa Some Love

My Time to Craft Challenge - Xtra Special

One Stitch at a Time - Boys to Men

Pixie Cottage - Father's Day and/or sketch

Paper Cutz - Father's Day

CCEE Stampers - One for the Males

C.R.A.F.T. Challenge - Father's Day

Sweet Baby Girl

Hello and welcome to my Creative Inspirations Wednesday Challenge Blog post. Sadly, this will be my last one with the team as I have stepped down. It was my decision, but it still makes me sad. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the team, but I had taken on too many teams and deadlines and something had to give.

This week the challenge is to make a card for a baby. I noticed that the entire team and one of the guest designers chose pink. I guess we all love those girly girl type of creations. Mine uses a darling image from Isabella's Sketchbook, DP from Raspberry Road Designs and gingham from Pink Petticoat. It's a digital bonanza! The image was colored with Copics, the edges sponged with Creamy Caramel and the sentiment computer generated. A Martha Stewart edge punch was used as well as the Swiss Dots embossing folder for the Cuttlebug. I feel like it's a little too washed out with all the pinks, but other than that I really like the way it looks.

Hope you will stop by the other Creative Inspirations designers' blogs and play along with our babies challenge. Thanks so much for making a stop at my blog today and for the lovely comments you may leave.

Blessings & hugs,

Challenges Entered:

Allsorts - Inspiration - Strawberries & Cream

A Spoonful of Sugar - Floral Delights

The Crazy Challenge - Distress It

Mojo Monday - Sketch

Res-Q-Challenge - Close it Up (stitching)

Sentimental Sundays - New or neglected stash (new image and new digital paper)

Stamp, Scrap & Doodle - Make a hand made embellishment

Alphabet Challenge Blog - F is for Flowers

Creative Cottage Challenge - Going Pink

Decorate-a-Bag Challenge

Happy Friday morning to you! If you are wondering what happened to my Sugar Creek Hollow Fabulous Friday post, we have delayed it until Saturday as we are doing a blog hop. That post will be up at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday.

Thanks so much for dropping by my blog today! I have something a little different to share with you. This week, the Fairy Fun Friday challenge is to decorate a gift bag. I really was not looking forward to this project because I didn't have a clue what to do or even where to start. But the deadline was ticking away so I plunged in. I have a whole package of these white lunch-type bags that I purchased a few years ago from SU. Why? Because I have to have everything, I guess. I'm used maybe two out of the whole package but they came it handy for this project. But a white bag? I've resisted buying a Copic airbrush system, but was thinking that it would really come in handy to add some color to all that white. Then I remembered my Mini Misters and Tim Holtz alcohol inks. I used Lettuce and Stream on the bag. Unfortunately one of the misters seemed to come out as a stream rather than a mist so there are a couple of places where the green color is blotchy. In my ribbon stash, I found ribbon that matched perfectly. That's when I relaxed and let the mojo take over. A couple of Spellbinders dies, a Cuttlebug die and an SU daisy punch later and this project was in the bag. The image, of course, is by the Prairie Fairy and can be found here.

Hope you will be inspired to decorate a gift bag and enter into our challenge. Take a look at what the other designers have done and maybe even swing by their blogs to leave them a little love.

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

Thanks so much for stopping by today! If you haven't registered for my blog candy, please feel free to do so. The post is at the top of the blog.

Blessings & hugs,

Lazy Beach Days

Whoohoo!! Summer's here in all its glory and it's time to hit the beach! So this week at Creative Inspirations Wednesday Challenge Blog we are challenging you to make a beach inspired card. Can't wait to see all the wonderful entries that will be rolling in!

I used two Flourishes sets to make my DT card: Seaside Life and Beach Life. I really love both of these sets!! The shells were stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black on Flourishes card stock and colored with Copics. They were trimmed out and coated with Crystal Effects. I also used the shells to stamp around the perimeter of the Soft Suede layer in Versamark and then clear embossed them for texture. The DP is from the K&Co. Sea Glass stack. I bought it a year ago and hardly used it. Now I've used it twice in the past couple of weeks - great DP!!

I layered the Soft Suede and the DP together, stitched around the edge and then cut a window with the Labels 1 Spellbinders die. Then a frame was cut by taping the die used to cut the window and the next larger size together, being very careful to make sure the gap was equi-distant all the way around. This configuration was used to cut a frame in the Soft Suede.

I used Dusty Durango for the outer shell and the inside window because I thought it mimicked the firey ocean sunset. I cut a piece larger than the window and embossed it with the Cuttlebug Moroccan Screen EF and layered the serene ocean scene over it. The beach sign was made with some Cosmo Cricket DP that looked like wood. I stamped the sentiment in Vintage Photo Distress Ink and mounted in on a toothpick (coated with Vintage Photo distress ink too).

So, what do you think? I told the other designers on the team that I couldn't decide if I liked it or if it was an over-the-top mess. But is was a lot of fun to make so I guess that redeems it no matter what anyone else thinks - right?

Now it's time to hurry on over to the Creative Inspirations Wednesday Challenge blog to see the other wonderful creations from the design team members.

Thanks so much for stopping by to see what I made for Creative Inspirations this week. I love to know who is visiting so leave me a little comment if you have time.

Update: A reader asked about the fishing net - did I purchase it or make it. I made it - LOL! I looked all over for one to buy, couldn't find one and resorted to tying string together to make one. And wouldn't you know it. I was in Marshall's yesterday and they had a little bundle of shells all tied up in a pretty little net for $1.99. Of course, I snatched it up so I'm set for next time! Thanks for asking.

Blessings & hugs,

Challenges entered:

Chrisma Cardz Challenge - Going Around in Circles

Whimsical Wednesdays - The Diedrich Dare - Summer Inspiration

Everybody Art Challenge - Summer

Papertake Weekly - Fun, Fun, Fun

Tuesday Taggers - Touchy, feely texture

Pixie Cottage - Use metal and/or sketch (mine has metal)

The Pink Elephant - Gotta Wear Shades (bright colors)

Cupcake Craft Challenge - Summer Inspired

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