And one more makeover card.......and a winner!

Before I get started, I'd like to announce the random winner from the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge STAMPtember Blog Hop from my blog!  It is.......

Natalie at NGCards

Congratulations!  Simon Says Stamp will be getting in touch with you so that you can claim your prize!  Now back to normal programming......

At the new Hero Arts blog, the challenge is to choose one of your own cards and make it over, using at least 1 Hero Arts element.

I chose this Father's Day card:

and made it into a Mother's Day card:

supplies: Hero Arts Edged Fabric with Flowers, Butterfly & Flowers Stamp & Cut, and Happy Stamp & cut, Spectrum Aqua markers, Ranger liquid platinum embossing powder, platinum cardstock, moonshine sequins

(First let me say that this photograph is not true to color, but I don't know what to do to fix it.  It was photographed in good natural light, so it's something with my camera, Picasa, or just this monitor.  The background and card base are actually a true PINK bubblegum color - to me it's reading more of a dark peach or salmon.)  

I used a Rose Pink watercolor marker to color my background stamp, then spritzed it with water and stamped.  The butterflies were also colored with various watercolor markers before they were die-cut with the matching die in their set.

Weekend again!  Hope it's a great one!!

Simon Says Stamp October Card Kit

Simon's done it again - put together some beautiful elements for their current Card Kit!

I made 2 cards for starters, and I never even got to the stamp set in the kit!  I used the papers and journaling cards primarily for my cards this time:

supplies: Simon's Cream cardstock for card base, My Mind's Eye patterned paper and journaling card, Simon's Black cardstock, Brilliance Galaxy Gold tear-drop ink pad, Simon's Painter Hello die, all found in this October card kit, my own gold foil paper

I chose this square journaling card that had the shape of a butterfly cut out of it, and framed it in black cardstock, then popped it above the gorgeous patterned paper, which has foiled gold here and there on it.  I also used the gold ink to put a gold edge all along that patterned paper.  And lastly I cut the sentiment from some gold foil paper and glued it in the center of the butterfly panel, which was then popped up above the card.  A simple design, but those triangles in the background give the effect of a million fluttering butterflies!

supplies: Simon's Cream Cardstock for card base, pattern paper, journaling card, and Pimento cardstock from My Mind's Eye, embroidery floss, all in October Card kit, my own Pretty Pink Posh sequins

Again, I chose this pretty journaling card, framed it in the included pimento cardstock, and then added some embellishments: tied a bow using the included embroidery floss, and fussy-cut and popped the butterfly from one of the other journaling cards, then added some sequins.  Love the sentiment!

Don't wait too long, I'm sure this one will be another sell-out!  For lots more ideas using this kit, don't miss the October Card Kit gallery at the Simon Says Stamp blog!

Simon Says........Die Crazy

It's time for a new challenge at the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge blog!

Our theme this week is Die Crazy - use a die somewhere on your creation.  The Design Team are using products from WPLUS9 this week.

Both my cards today use WPLUS9 stamps and dies:

supplies: WPLUS9 Doodle Buds stamps and dies, and Hand Lettered Hello stamps and die, Spectrum Aqua watercolor markers on Bristol paper, Simon's moonshine sequins

And another card using one of my favorite WPLUS9 stamp sets, Quilt Prints.  It is just as fun as making a real quilt, because you can choose the patterns and colors for each element of the design.  I used a die-cut sentiment to help it stand out against the busy background:

supplies: white cardstock, WPLUS9 Quilt Prints and Hand Lettered Thanks die and stamp, Simon Hollyhock, Audrey Blue, and Spring Rain inks

Now it's your turn - I can't wait to see what you create!  Heidi has provided another $50.00 gift voucher

to the amazing Simon Says Stamp store for 1 lucky random winner of this week's challenge!

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! 

Beautiful Fall

Here's another card for the current Hero Arts Makeover Challenge, in honor of my favorite season:

supplies: Hero Arts Simple Leaf Background, stamped in their Butter to Orange ombre ink, Hello Stamp & Cut set, mandarin layering paper, die-cut leaves, one of them on a cherry wood veneer

This is a loose take on a sketch from Hero Arts back in August 2012.  It has become one of my favorite go-to sketches.  I combined it with elements from this inspiration card:

For my updated card, I started with the same Simple Leaf Background stamp and stamped it using HA's ombre Butter to Orange stamp pad, then cut it into a panel.  I inlaid my die-cut sentiment, lined the panel in mandarin layering paper, and added some die-cut maple leaves, one of which is cut from a cherry wood veneer.  

Fresh Daisies for You

Here's my card for the current Card Concept challenge:

supplies: white, apple green, and Audrey Blue cardstock, vellum, PTI daisy dies and Friendship Jar stamp, Simon leaf dies, stem stamps, and You die, yellow buttons, Doodlebug twine

Here's our inspiration, isn't it pleasing?  

I guess I'd put my card in the Clean and Layered category.  There's isn't anything happier than daisies in a canning jar.  Yes, my buttons are naked - I am from here on abandoning the practice of threading every button I use on a card!

Hope this brightens your day!

Another Makeover

Here's another card I made over for the Hero Arts Makeover Challenge.  Here's my inspiration card from last year:

and here's my new version:

supplies: Hero Arts Wreath of Leaves cling stamp, Hero Arts Green Hills and Grass inks, and their Color Layering Bird & Branch clear set, Hero Arts  Pale Tomato, Punch, and Red Royal inks, red sequins, Simon's Merry Christmas die

I love how this brand new bird fits right into the older 2010 wreath.  The wreath was stamped 4 times or so to make it nice and full.  And if you haven't figured it out yet, I am ALL IN with these multi-step stamping sets!  Keem 'em coming, please!

And this is my first Christmas card of the year!

Simon Says..........Use a Stamp and Blog Hop!

It's time for a new challenge at the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge blog!This week our challenge is Use a Stamp.  

We're doing things a tiny bit different just this week: you must create a project using a stamp, no digitals, please, add your creation to the linky as usual, AND then hop around to all of the Design Team's blogs and leave a comment.

We are all showcasing the new STAMPtember® products being released - a humongous release full of stamps, stencils, and dies! If you haven't seen them yet, just click HERE.

So since you have lots of hopping to do, let's get started!  You should have arrived here from my lovely teamie Jo's blog.  If not, you can go to the Simon Says Stamp Blog to start at the beginning. Here are 2 cards using the new stamp sets I was sent:

supplies: Simon's Back to School stamp set, markers to color, yellow gelato, My Favorite Things Stitched Traditional Tags die, Lawn Fawn twine

I repeatedly stamped the bus across the card front, then scribbled on a yellow gelato.  I stamped and colored the little student, cut her out on a stitched tag, and added my sentiment stamped and embossed in white on black to make it resemble a chalkboard, in keeping with the school theme.

My next card uses a stamp set that is really meant for using in planners, but I did my best to use a few of the elements on a card that could be given by a proud parent to a son or daughter.  Soccer was the sport both our boys played growing up, so I concentrated on that sport only, but with the many different sports represented in this set, it could easily be changed out for anything else:

supplies: black and white cardstock, Simon's Sports Planner stamp set and Best Circle die, also Big Scripty Greetings stamp set

This Sports Planner set has every sports ball you can think of, plus some sentiments that would really come in handy for listing all the practices and notes a parent would need during any sports season.

Now it's your turn!  We have a $50.00 gift voucher to the Simon Says Stamp Store for one lucky random winner of our challenge!

AND I have a Simon's goodie bag to give away, too!  All you need to do is leave me a comment here and enter the challenge!

 

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! Follow Simon Says Stamp on Instagram.

The next person on the hop is our fearless leader Lols!  Happy Hopping!

Hero Arts Makeover Challenge

Hero Arts has unveiled a brand new website and store this month, and their challenge to go along with it is to "take a trip down memory lane, select an existing project as inspiration, and change it up somehow to create a new project."  What a fun idea!  I looked back through my flickr Hero Arts cards and chose this one from 2013 as my inspiration:  

I updated it using some newer stamp & cut sets:

supplies: white and black cardstock, Hero Arts Butterfly & Flowers and Hello stamp & die sets, flower sequins, wink of stella on flowers and butterfly, markers to color

There will be 4 winners chosen, so I hope you'll play along too!  Thanks for stopping by today.

Share Joy

What a great name for a challenge!  Share Joy is a new challenge sponsored by Taylored Expressions, and part of the challenge is to send or give your card away.  Their first challenge uses colors that are so pleasing - so glad I was able to enter this first one!  And it's so kind of them to not require using their own products, as I only own an embossing folder from them right now.

supplies: white, pool, and grass cardstock, MME plank dp, Altenew Vintage Flowers and leaves from Painted Flowers, inks in colors of challenge, Winnie & Walter Big, Bold Friends cutaway, aqua and yellow pearls

I've been wanting to use this branch and smaller flowers from the Vintage Flowers set, and was pleased to try them out for the first time.  I used all 3 layers on each flower, but only 1 ink this time, so the details are much more subtle than if I'd used 3 shades of ink.  I added leaves from Painted Flowers colored with a marker, then fussy-cut out my arrangement and placed it over the planking.

Here's our inspiration.  I used the colors only:

Color Throwdown #358

I'm sneaking in at the 11th hour with a card for the current Color Throwdown.  These were my high school colors back in the dark ages - how could I not play?  :))

supplies: white, navy and yellow cardstock, Altenew Vintage Flowers, Simon's Dots and Lines stencil, Hero Arts sentiment from Hello Sunshine Daisies, yellow pearls

Pink & Main

There's a new company brand at Simon Says Stamp called Pink & Main!  I was lucky enough to get a couple of their stamp sets and today I'm sharing 2 cards I made using them.

supplies: orange, black, and white cardstock, orange check dp from Bella Blvd, Pink & Main's Hey Pumpkin clear stamp set, VersaFine onyx black ink, Spellbinder's Deckled rectangles die

There are lots of fun elements in Hey Pumpkin, but I chose to concentrate on the fun carved faces for the pumpkins on this card.  They are fun and not too scary, perfect for my little grands.

This next card uses their Bubbly Card Borders stamp set.

supplies: Pink & Main Bubbly Card Borders, Simon's Big Scripty Greetings, VersaFine onyx black and Ranger pink gumball inks

There are 6 individual borders in this set - I only used 2 of them......this would work nicely with any stamps that are striped, too.

I hope you'll check out Pink & Main if you like cute stamps - they are currently 27 different sets at the Simon Says Stamp store!

Simon's September Card Kit

This month's Card Kit from Simon Says Stamp has some really fun elements this time.

The acetate cards inside the kit really intrigued me, and there is something there for everyone!  For my first card, I was especially drawn to this gold leafy branch design, and used it to make a shaker card, possibly for an autumn birthday.

supplies: all supplies from Simon's September Card Kit, except melon cardstock used on sentiment, Ranger Super Fine detail gold embossing powder, and Simon's Fall Festival sequins

The papers in this kit from PinkFresh Studios are so unusual, and I chose 2 of them for this next card.  I just stamped my sentiment from the new Birthday Bits clear stamp set in the kit over the balloons, and added some of the small elements at the top left corner, along with some of my own sequins.

We are FINALLY getting some rain here this morning; a welcome relief from those humid temperatures we've been having lately - love having the windows open once again!  I wish you all in the states a fabulous Labor Day weekend!

Tuesday's Take 3

Cath Edvalson has started a blog and she's loaded it with inspiration, just like back in the day with her Moxie Fab column!  She has a challenge that she's calling Tuesday's Take, and it was just what I needed to get back into the groove after a 2 1/2 week vacation!

As soon as I saw her inspiration photo, I couldn't wait to play, especially since I just got this new card-sized die, which matches the design she gave us!  Here's my entry:

supplies: white cardstock, and Hero Arts shallows layering paper, Lil Inker Circles and Diamond Stitched Pattern die and coordinating Darling Diamonds stamp set, Simon's Smile Circle die, Spellbinder's circles dies

I thought the circle smile die would work nicely as a sentiment with the design, as it adds another circle to the design, yet it allows the background stamping to be seen.  

Here's Cath's inspiration piece:

ETA: I just realized that this is perfect for Virginia's current challenge: Geometric Patterns!  So I'm adding it to that challenge, also.

Simon Says.........Make It Colorful!

It's time for a new challenge at the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge blog!

Our theme this week is "Make it Colorful"!  And the Design Team are using Doodlebug products this week.  I have been in love with Doodlebug forever - colorful is certainly their middle name, and I love that they have kept their products compatible with each other from year to to year!  

supplies: Doodlebug Sunkissed 6" paper pad, Lily White Mini Paper Doily, and Spring Flowers sprinkles, Hero Arts Hello Stamp & Cut stamp and die set, Sizzix flowers embossing folder

All of the papers on this card come from the Sunkissed pad.  Since this card was busy with patterns, I also made another more CAS card, using Doodlebug Swiss Dots washi tapes:

supplies: assorted Doodlebug Swiss Dot washi tapes, My Favorite Things Die-Namics Happy die, typed words from Winnie & Walter's The Big, the Bold, and the Happy clear stamp set, assorted sequins to match

Now it's your turn!  We have a $50.00 gift voucher to the Simon Says Stamp Store for one lucky random winner of our challenge!

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!