Watercolor Wings

Tough stuff... who knew that stamping these lovely butterfly wings would be so bloody hard.  I stamped ten butterflies and not a single one came out perfect.  Not one.  I had four that were... meh... okay if you don't look close.  I'll keep practicing for sure but I seriously can't get over how hard it was.

For this card I combined the colourQ and Mojo Monday challenges.

Thankful for You

I'm obsessed with the bear in this stamp set.  I think it's just the cutest animal stamp right now.  This is what I threw together for the PPA 264 Sketch Challenge.

I'm back!

I just noticed that I haven't created a post in over a year.  Jeez, time flies!  I've been busy with life...

Here is my card for the Freshly Made Sketches Challenge and the colourQ Challenge.

Happy Mother's Day!

I used three different stamps for the first time on this one card.  Since it is my first time stamping in months I decided to break in as many new stamp sets as possible.  I keep seeing a lot of awesome cards using the Gorgeous Grunge stamps and I wanted to try it out for myself.  Not so successful, I had to turn my paper over because I pressed the stamp too hard.  It looked a little busy too on my first try so I simplified it and only used the splatter looking image.  I fussy cut all of the flowers from the Peaceful Petals stamp.  This is not what I had in mind when I started but I think it works.

Challenge Entered:

Dynamic Duos #98

Happy Watercolor

It is my first time making cards since early February.  It has been way too long.  I've been so busy with work, I haven't had any time to let out my creative juices.  I have a bunch of new stamps sets that I had not opened until today.  When I saw the colors in the ColourQ challenge, I knew I wanted to try out the Happy Watercolor stamp set.  I like the simplicity of it all.

Challenge Entered:

ColourQ 236

You Mean the World to Me

The Sent with Love DSP was one of my favorite paper collections from Stampin' Up! last year.  I really wanted to show off the airplanes on this card, no special reason except it was one of my favorite prints. I incorporated the globe image from the Love You More stamp set and I think they work together perfectly with the sketch from The Deconstructed Sketch.  This is my favorite card that I made this weekend!

Challenge Entered:

The Deconstructed Sketch #136

Party Time Tuesdays

retrosketches #100

We have a lot of birthdays in February in my office so I have been on a birthday card making mission.  I used the sketch from retrosketches 100th challenge sketch to make this card.  Sweet Sorbet DSP has a few sheets that make me want to party so I had to incorporate it into my card.  I also love the sentiments from the See Ya Later stamp set.  This sentiment used on the card is perfect for an upcoming birthday girl, she told me her 20th class reunion is this summer and she looks sooooo good!  It must be all of the yoga... 

Challenge Entered:

retrosketches #100

Language of Love

Love is in the air and on all the shelves in every store... I decided to break out my Language of Love stamp set.  When I saw the colors from the Dynamic Duos color challenge I thought it would work out well together.  Sent with Love is a favorite DSP of mine and I was able to incorporate that into this card.

Challenge Entered:

Dynamic Duos #88

Sending Good Thoughts Your Way

I am in love with the Sweet Sorbet DSP.  I think I even have some clothes with similar prints and colors.  Here is my take on the PPA 189 sketch.  There have been a lot of deaths in my extended family recently and I need to send this to someone just to cheer them up.  This card is so simple but it brings a smile to my face every time I look at it.

Challenge Entered:

PPA #189

Happy Engagement!

This week I found out that one of my co-workers got engaged over the weekend and I wanted to make a card to congratulate her.  I noticed a rock on her finger and had to ask.  She didn't make an announcement yet because she was waiting to tell all of her family and friends first.

I combined the Color Throwdown colors with the sketch from Freshly Made Sketches.  It is kind of hard to tell from my bad photo but I inked the sentiment in regal rose ink and then colored in the smaller font with brown.  I kind of like that it helps the pink to pop a little more.

 

Challenges Entered:

Color Throwdown #277

Freshly Made Sketches #121

Happy Birthday!

My weekend is coming to an end.  I have Sundays and Mondays off because I unfortunately work every Saturday.  Yesterday we went to the Denver Broncos play-off game where they beat San Diego to move on to the AFC Championship game.  I was freezing at the game, it was soooo windy that the game was a lot more chilly than any of us thought it would be.  

When I saw the colors from the Color Throwdown challenge I knew I had to participate because they were essentially Broncos colors, blue and orange.  Hey, whatever gets you motivated right?  We are in the spirit!  Go Broncos!

 

I combined these two challenges and got a nice simple card which will be perfect for our office birthday card stash.  It's a new year with new milestones!

Challenges Entered:

Color Throwdown #274

Freshly Made Sketches #118

Love you to the moon and back...

When I saw this sketch from Mojo Monday I knew I wanted to use some of my new goodies especially this cute sentiment with the moon.  I also used the Retro Fresh DSP.  I originally had a cluster of hearts where the sketch has hearts but it just got to busy with the arrows in the background so I shifted over a few to the other side.  I really love the colors in the DSP but now that I look at the picture using the brown may have been a little dark.  I think this looks a little better in person.  Oh well, live and learn.

The tricky part was incorporating hearts.  I don't really like perfect hearts so I don't have a lot of heart stamps.  This larger heart is a set of wings from the Bug Me stamp set and the little heart if from the Owl Punch.  

Challenge Entered:

Mojo Monday 327

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!  This is my first card of the new year.  We were in Hawaii for the holidays visiting family and friends and we had a wonderful time with everyone.  My body went into shock returning to snowy Colorado!  I never get used to the cold.  We flew from Hilo, HI to Denver on New Year's Eve and didn't get to really celebrate the New Year.  So here is our party in a card!

For this card I combined the colourQ and retrosketches challenges.  I am very proud of my embossing, I have been embossing for years but I think this is my most perfect embossing image ever.  Well, perfect to me.  I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and have a great 2014!

 

Challenges Entered:

colourQ #222

retrosketches #96

Party Time Tuesdays #153

Season of Joy

For this card I used one of my all time favorite Christmas stamp sets, Season of Joy.  It is one of the few wood block stamp sets that I own.  I incorporated the colors from the colourQ challenge and the sketch from Mojo Monday.  I love the bright colors together, they seem so fresh and modern.

 

Challenges Entered:

colourQ 218

Mojo Monday 323

Party Time Tuesdays 149

Warm Wishes

It is freezing in Colorado!  I take that back, it is BELOW FREEZING!  I am not used to this weather at all, and I can't wait for some sunshine and some double digit temps.  My heart stops every time I look at the temperature because lately it has been below zero.  

I am a huge fan of the Denver Broncos and I am giving away my (season) ticket to the game this weekend because I am dreading the cold weather on Sunday.  I am opting to sit in the house by myself and watch the game in the warmth of my home.  

Back to my card, my two favorite colors are purple and gray.  So when I saw the PPA color challenge this week I knew I had to make a card.  I also used the sketch from Freshly Made Sketches and thought it would be fun to incorporate the image from the Remembering Christmas stamp set.  I embossed the image on Very Vanilla with clear embossing powder to get a fun texture and shimmer and then it all came together.  This may be a first for me, I used the entire stamp set on one card.  I am kind of proud of myself.  I opted to emboss the Elegant Eggplant cardstock with snowflakes so I could participate in the Stampin' Royalty "Snowflakes" challenge this week.

This card is for anyone out there who is freezing as much as I am... WARM WISHES!

 

Challenges Entered:

Freshly Made Sketches 115

Pals Paper Arts 182

Stampin' Royalty 205

Tis the Season!

I love the colors from the Color Throwdown challenge and I combined it with the sketch from Mojo Monday.  I like the simplicity of it all.  One of my friends gave me this stamp set when she moved to Oregon and I haven't used it as much as I would have liked.  

We are really getting into the holiday spirit.  My husband and I have the Christmas tree up (and some wrapped gifts under the tree), the Christmas lights outside, stockings above the fireplace and the Christmas Village up.  It is starting to look awesome in our house and this will be our first Christmas here, but not really because we will be celebrating Christmas with my side of the family in Hawaii.

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Stamp: Yuletide Montage

Ink: Crumb Cake

Cardstock: Crumb Cake, Whisper White, Gumball Green, Glimmer Paper Silver

Embossing Folder: Woodgrain

Ribbon: Gumball Green Stitched Satin

Challenges Entered: 

Mojo Monday 322

Color Throwdown 270

Party Time Tuesdays 148

Retrosketches #91

Every year I like to make a few Christmas cards with non-traditional Christmas colors.  Here she is for the year.  I was going through all of my holiday papers that I have stashed away through the years and this paper just popped out and I decided that I had to use it.  I also had some random stamps that I purchased after the holidays last year and I finally got to ink them up.  On the inside of the card I trimmed the tree line of one of the rows of trees and lined it on the bottom of the card.  I based this card off of the sketch from retrosketches.

Challenge Entered:

retrosketches #91

Unscripted Sketches #232

I am on a holiday card making mission.  I thought I had some cards stashed up for the holiday season but it looks like I only have six.  Not good enough... Here is one of many for the day and I was able to incorporate the sketch from Unscripted Sketches challenge.  I am loving the new stamp set - Christmas Messages.

Challenge Entered:

Unscripted Sketches #232

Party Time Tuesdays #147

I have not entered a PTT challenge in a very long time, maybe even the term of a design team member. So, I decided to make a point to create a card for the latest challenge.  It isn't much and I had a hard time finding these colors but I will say the colors a are very fun.

Challenge Entered:

Party Time Tuesdays #147

Thank goodness, I'm back in my craft room!

I have not been in my craft room since the flood in September.  We have been so busy at work that I have been exhausted for the last two months.  I go to work and I come home and sleep.  I think we ate out in the last two months more than ever because we didn't have much food in the house or I left work so late we were too tired to even attempt to cook something.  I've been asked a lot lately what have I been working on and I seriously had nothing new to report.  I decided that it was my mission today to make it back in the craft room and work on some holiday projects and cards.  I ordered some Fall stamps a while back and unpacked them today.  I decided that I needed to break them in and the colors from the colourQ challenge matched my Sweater Weather DSP perfectly so I decided to roll with it.

 

Pictures from the flood.

 

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Stamp: Harvest of Thanks

Ink: Tangerine Tango

Cardstock: Sweater Weather DSP, Crumb Cake, Whisper White

Challenges Entered:

Pals Paper Arts 180

colourQ 216