Card Concept

When I saw the Card Concept inspiration for this week, I knew I would be playing - I love a mix of stripes and florals, and I have been wanting to have a play again with my Vintage Roses stamps.  Here's what I made:

supplies: MFT Stripes stencil, tumbled glass distress ink, Altenew Vintage Roses, Simon's Best Mom Ever sentiment, Echo Park Bundle of Joy Dots & Stripes paper strip, EKSuccess scalloped border punch, moonshine sequins

The combination of the stripes, dots and flowers is so pretty!  I stencilled my stripes, then stamped and fussy-cut my spray of roses.  I added a punched dotty strip and my sentiment, and some sequins for a little sparkle.  I'm guessing my card would be considered Clean and Layered.

Isn't this inspiration amazing?

Simon Says........Anything Goes!

Welcome to our most popular challenge at the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge!

Our theme this week is your favorite Anything Goes, and the Design Team are using Prima products.  Prima makes everything from their well-known paper flower collections to stamp sets and papers and everything in between!   I have 2 very different cards for you this week.

supplies: Prima Cigar Box Secrets paper pad and 3D stickers, Simon's large Heart Doily and You're Amazing dies, May Arts natural twine, gold pearl

When I was looking through the store among the Prima goodies, this next set of vellum flowers caught my eye, and here's what I made with it:

supplies: Prima's Nightfall Sunset vellum flowers, papers from Simple Stories DIY and Crate Paper, Simon's Wishing die and Wishing & Sending stamp set, gold and silver sequins

Now it's your turn!  As ever, we have a $50.00 gift voucher

to the fabulous Simon Says Stamp Superstore for 1 lucky random winner of our challenge this week!

Do you use Instagram?  If you do, we'd love you to add #ssswchallenge to your challenge entry uploads so we can see them on there, too!

City Crafter Challenge Guest Designer!

The City Crafter Challenge is celebrating its fifth birthday all during April, and each week we get to CASE a different designer's card.  This week, it's Stella!  

As a winner of a past challenge, I was invited to be a guest designer this week!  I did 2 cards, using Stella's sketch, and changing up the colors, using a spring pastel theme for both of them.  I love the combination of stripes and florals, and mixed these together on both my cards.

supplies: dps from Echo Park and Webster's Pages, Penny Black Flutters die and Spellbinder's circle die, Hero Arts sentiment from discontinued Anytime Messages, moonbeam sequins

supplies: dps from Lawn Fawn and Pebbles, PTI flower die and Spellbinder's circle die, discontinued The Craft's Meow sentiment from Easter Blessings, large pink sequin

Thanks to the City Crafter ladies for having me as a Guest Designer this week!

Aunt Betty's Violets

Today I had a memory of my Aunt Betty and a very young me sitting in the woods picking violets and finding a yellow one.  I don't think I've seen a yellow violet growing in the wild since, so this is a special memory for me.  My Aunt passed away several years ago, in her late 80's, and it's amazing how various memories float up every once in awhile.  She had no children of her own, so she spoiled all of her nieces and nephews and made us each feel special.  I also remember picking violets and making a little bouquet like this, surrounded with their leaves, for my Mom or Gramma in the spring - I still have a patch of purple violets in one of our gardens, and enjoy picking the tiny flowers to bring inside and put in a small vase.....they have a lovely soft smell!

supplies: Stampendous Build a Bouquet, (stems are from Simon's Artful Flowers), stamped in VersaMark and embossed in white, then watercolored with Spectrum Aqua markers Florals and Essential sets, Hero Arts sentiment from Remember set, Cornflower blue ink, Die-Namics doily die-cut, blue gingham ribbon, sequins, Doodlebug striped paper, Die-Namics Blueprints 20 scalloped die

She had the most beautiful blue eyes, like her father, and her brother, my Dad, so I chose to accent this with some touches of blue.  I miss you, Aunt Betty!

And since I've used a die-cut and my Spectrum Aqua Floral and Essential markers, I'd link to enter the Spectrum Noir April challenge.

Simon Flickr Color Challenge

I love spring and spring colors, so I decided to play along in the current Simon Flickr challenge going on now.  Barb asked us to use these 4 colors, all of them, and no others except black and white:

Here's my entry:

supplies: Simon's Artful Flowers, Doodlebug and Lawn Fawn dps, Memory Box Grapevine wreath, Apple Green cardstock, Winnie & Walter's Spring cutaway, flower sequins, Signo white gel pen 

Thanks for stopping by - hope you're having a great weekend!

White on White with a Pop of Color

I thought that the current Make it Monday was such a great idea that I just had to have a play, too, even though my collection of PTI stamps is very small. But I think I made it work using this little sentiment of theirs:

I die-cut a bunch of these scribble flowers from white, and just one from a pink mettalic sheet, added some green cardstock leaves and filled my panel with them.  That panel was cut down a bit, framed with pink, and popped above my card base.  The sentiment is from their Flower Fusion #12 stamp set, using VersaFine black and picked raspberry distress inks.  I also added a single pink enamel dot to the center of the flower.  I'm really pleased that this one turned out exactly as I meant it to!

A new release at Simon Says Stamp!

Today's the day that Simon shows us it's newest release called Falling for You!

Heidi very kindly sent all of the Wednesday Blog teamies something new and here's what I made with my set called Lila's Heart:

supplies: Lila's Heart, Basic Grey Vivienne dps, enamel heart from MME Jubilee enamel shapes

Being a former curly head, and having a granddaughter who inherited those curls, I think this set is so darling, and there are so many hearts in it, also!  The images are simply done, so they're very easy to paper-piece as I've done, or color in using your favorite medium.    There are a mix of cute fonts, too, so this set hits all my buttons!

Hurry on over to Simon Says Stamp to see all of the new things that are being released today!

Simon Says........Clean and Simple

It's Wednesday, and that means another challenge begins at the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday blog!

This week we're asking for Clean and Simple projects!  The Design Team are all using Hero Arts products, a company near and dear to my heart!  Here's my first card, using products released in January:

supplies: white and black cardstock and various tone-on-tone design papers, Hero Arts Butterfly & Flower stamp and cut set and Hello stamp and cut set, Simon's stitched rectangle die, Juli's Garden embossing folder, buttons to match flowers

I used an older cling stamp for my next two cards:

supplies: Hero Arts Large Blossom and Live Life stamps, VersaFine onyx black ink and Hero Arts clear embossing powder, carnation layering paper, spun sugar and squeezed lemonade distress inks, worn lipstick and shabby shutters distress markers

This stamp highlights the negative image, so the background and the details of the flowers and leaves get stamped.  In this case, I used black ink and embossed it in clear, then colored in my details with distress inks and markers.

And another version that I have done previously, but never got to share on my blog, this time stamped on pool cardstock in VersaMark and embossed in white:

supplies: Hero Arts Large Blossom and Find Joy, pool layering paper, tumbled glass and shabby shutters distress markers, white embossing powder, bias-striped washi tape

Now it's your turn!  We have a $50.00 gift voucher

to our fabulous Simon Says Stamp store for one lucky random winner!

Do you use Instagram?  If you do, we'd love you to add #ssswchallenge to your challenge entry uploads so we can see them on there, too!

Sketch challenge

The newest challenge at Sparkle & Shine is to use this sketch supplied by Winnie & Walter:

As usual, I went pretty literal for my entry:

supplies: Paper Smooches Blossoming Buds, Spectrum Noir colored pencils, Doodlebug dotted papers for banners, Lawn Fawn and Pretty Pink Posh sequins, Simon's Flower Friend sentiment, Green Apple and white cardstock

Thanks for stopping by today!

.......one more time

I promise this will be my last Build a Bouquet creation for awhile, but I wanted to put all the flowers in the set together.

supplies: Stampendous Build a Bouquet, watercolor paper, white embossed, Floral and Essential Spectrum Aqua markers, water brush, Hero Arts Bouquet of Love, vellum strip, tumbled glass distress ink, sequins from Lawn Fawn, Simon Says Stamp, and Pretty Pink Posh

This time I smooshed some tumbled glass distress ink on my kraft sheet, spritzed it with water, and then pulled a panel of watercolor paper through it to get this pretty blue background.  I added colored and clear sequins for some sparkle, and stamped my sentiment on a strip of vellum.

Once again, adding this to the Curtain Call challenge: Bouquet.

Bouquet of Thanks

Good Sunday morning to you!  I have another card to share using the fun Stampendous Build a Bouquet cling set.  This set is so fun to watercolor, that I'm afraid you'll be seeing lots and lots more examples using it........

supplies:  Stampendous Build a Bouquet, Floral and Essential Spectrum Aqua markers, water pen, tumbled glass distress ink, watercolor paper, Simon's Surf Blue cardstock, blue gingham from Pebbles Garden Party, Wplus9 thanks die, scallop punch

Gingham has always been dear to me; there's just something so sweet about it, so I thought it would pair nicely with this pretty bouquet in a canning jar.  And I wanted to say how pleased I am with these new Spectrum Aqua markers.  I just scribble a bit of their color onto watercolor paper, and then use a wet brush to move it around on the design.  I mixed several colors, too, and they work beautifully in that respect.  I have another set on my wishlist now, the Natural set, as I need some blues.  (I used tumbled glass distress ink to color my canning jar and bring out the details.)

I'll enter this into the current Curtain Call challenge.

Sweet

The cue word for this week's CASology challenge is sweet.  My mind went immediately to fresh juicy strawberries, and I used a stamp that I won years ago and have never used.  Many, many years ago, when I was more into gardening than stamping, I planted a little grouping of alpine strawberries, which are teensy-tiny little things, but just as tasty as their big sisters.  Over time, that patch has disappeared, but, I still find individual plants popping up here and there all over our gardens!  They are a joy to discover each year!

supplies: red and white cardstock, Flourishes Berry Sweet Frame set, markers, labels die

I stamped the berry sprig and sentiment on my white background, then cut out a red label frame and glued it around the stamped image, rounded the corners and attached it to a red card base.

A sneak peek

of one of the new stamp sets being released next Thursday, April 23, at Simon Says Stamp!

The release is called Falling for You!

Sweet Violets

I have been watching and waiting for the Stampendous Build a Bouquet cling stamp set to order it - it has been sold out everywhere since CHA, it seems!  Last week it popped up for a mini-second at Simon Says Stamp, and I dropped everything and ordered it.  Had a play today and I am SO pleased with it!

And how nice of Curtain Call to design their current challenge just for me!  Here's my first play with this fun set:

supplies: Stampendous Build a Bouquet, Spectrum Aqua Florals and Essentials watercolor markers, water brush, tumbled glass distress marker, PTI tiny tags and Friendship Jar sentiment, Pretty Pink Posh sequins, silk lavender ribbon, Penny Black cardstock, watercolor paper

I white embossed, watercolored, and fussy-cut the flowers and leaves from watercolor paper, but the vase I stamped right onto the background panel and carefully watercolored it in.  Then I played with my flowers and leaves until I had an arrangement that pleased me, and then I glued them down.  I think these flowers are meant to be hydrangeas, but here and at this time of year, they make me think of 2 little handfuls of violets.  

My Favorite Things Meets Page Maps

When I received this adorable Sunflower Sweetheart from My Favorite Things, I stamped her several times and colored her in various colors.  Thought I'd use one of those to play once again in the Bonus sketch challenge, with a sketch from Page Maps.

supplies: MFT Sunflower Sweetheart (image and sentiment) and Stitched Tag, dps from Echo Park's Hello Summer, washi tape and fabric tape, Doodlebug bumblebee twine.

Here's the fun sketch:

Simon Says........Make Your Own Background

Welcome to another challenge at the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge!

Our theme this week is "Make Your Own Background"and the Design Team are using My Favorite Things products.  If you have any of their products, we'd love to see you using them, too.  I made 2 cards today using their stamp set called Sunflower Sweetheart.

supplies: My Favorite Things Petal Pattern stencil, Ranger Texture Paste, gold pearls, Simon's Surf Blue cardstock, Sunflower Sweetheart, colored with alcohol markers

I had this little cutie carry a daisy, and then used the Petal Pattern stencil to make daisies for my background.  The sentiment is one of 5 in this set.

For my next card, I used the sunflowers from the stamp set and stamped them repeatedly to make a background, then overlaid that with a sheet of vellum to soften them and then added the little girl again, this time with the fence from the set.

supplies: Sunflower Sweetheart, Simon's Stitched Rectangle, alcohol markers to color, gold and white cardstock, vellum

Now it's your turn!  

We have a $50.00 gift voucher for the random winner of our challenge, that can be used at our fabulous Simon Says Stamp store!

Do you use Instagram?  If you do, we'd love you to add #ssswchallenge to your challenge entry uploads so we can see them on there, too!

Lil' Inker Monthly Meetup

I found a new (to me) challenge from Lil' Inker Designs and wanted to play again with my Spring Flowers die.  I also used some new Lawn Fawn papers for a soft spring mood......

supplies: Lil' Inker Spring Flowers die, discontinued Hero Arts sentiment, Lawn Fawn Let's Polka, Mon Amie papers, Anna Griffin Rosa embossing strip, Paper Smooches dots die, Paper Sweeties flower sequins

Thanks for stopping by!

Color Crush

At the Winnie & Walter blog, Taheerah is starting a new monthly column called The Gossip Column, and this month, she's focusing on the Pantone Spring Color Palette.  Our challenge is to make something using any combination of the colors.  I chose these blues:

          

with just a touch of green:

and here's my entry:

supplies: Winnie & Walter's Scenery: Stripes, Big Bold Hello cutaway, Big, Bold You stamp, retired Technique Tuesday Two Steppin' flower, EK success scallop punch, sequins, navy and pale blue cardstock, inks: Wplus9 Lake House, Hero Arts soft pool, mid-tone pool, and navy, cracked pistachio distress ink