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Happy Crafting !! :-)

A card using Simon's September CardKit

There are some really fun items in the Simon CardKit for September!  Among them are papers that include lots of blackboard motifs, and I featured one of them in this card, along with several of the smaller stamps from the Life is a Journey stamp set by Kristina Werner.

I simply trimmed the "lovely" sentiment, framed it in pink cardstock, coloring in the bow with a pale pink marker, and then stamped the flowers and leaves on my white card base, using tattered rose and bundled sage distress inks.  

I'll be back later this month with some more cards using this new CardKit.  If you like what you see, don't wait to order yours - this one will be another sell-out, I'm sure!

Thanks for visiting me today - hope it's a good one!

Simon Says......Monochromatic

Happy Wednesday and welcome to a new Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge!  

This week our theme is Monochromatic, and the design team and our guest designer Debby are all using Paper Smooches products.  Here's my card for today:

Isn't this tree fun?  It just begs to be paper-pieced, and it can be done in fall or spring colors, too, so I know this will get lots of use!  The set is called Summer Groves, and once I'd pieced that tree from all the greens, (too many sources to mention), I decided to piece the background, also.  Hope it brings a smile to your face!

Our Heidi has once again provided another $50.00 gift voucher to the Simon Says Stamp store.  I'm looking forward to see what you make this week!

Sweet Wishes

I was in the mood to do just a little paper-piecing, and here is the resulting card.

supplies: Penny Black stamps Blooming Garden, Friendship, various design papers, peach silk ribbon, brad

Thanks for visiting today!

Jackie's Lemon Zest challenge

I'm playing catch-up again with Jackie's Pantone color challenges.  Here's my card for her Lemon Zest challenge:

supplies: Hero Arts Daffodil layering paper, Leafy Vines, white embossing powder, Ali Edwards Simply You, HA charcoal mid-tone ink, Simon exclusive dies Leanna and Chrissy butterflies

Runway Inspired challenge

Penny Black is playing along with the Runway Inspired challenge this week, and we members of the Stamp Squad were asked to make some cards for it.  I made two!

supplies: burgundy and pale grey cardstock, silver embossing powder and glitter paper, Penny Black stamps Bed of Roses and To You, and flutters dragonfly die

supplies: white and deep burgundy cardstock, silver glitter paper and embossing powder, Penny Black Delicate Wings dies and Petal Party stamp, butterfly embossing folder

Isn't the inspiration dress amazing?

Simon Says.......Triangles!

Hello!  It's Wednesday and another new challenge at the Simon Says Stamp Challenge blog!  

This week our theme is Triangles!  The design team and our August Guest Designer Debby Hughes are using products from The Crafter's Workshop.  If you have any of them, we'd love to see your ideas, but it's not a requirement for the challenge.  I used their Mini Tri Mosaic stencil and made 2 cards for you today.

For this card I started with a beautiful paper from Authentique's Cherish collection, then used spun sugar and  antique linen distress inks to sponge the triangle design over it.  I roughed up my edges, darkened them with more distress ink and bent over the top left corner, then added the Simon exclusive Ariana Wreath die, a sentiment from Hero Arts Daisy Label, and a paper rose and pink pearls.

I went a bit more modern for this one.  Starting with a white piece of cardstock, I used some Gelatos with my stencil.  After removing the stencil, there was too much of a contrast for my taste, so I used a damp washcloth to tamp the color into the white areas around the triangles.  Next I overstamped with 2 Hero Arts background stamps: Envelope Pattern and Dots and Flowers.  I added some music, embossed in white, then my paper doily, and Precious Hearts dies, and finished with a sentiment from All Occasion Messages.

As always, Heidi has provided a $50.00 gift voucher to the random winner of this challenge.

Thanks for visiting today!

Special Day

Here's one more card for the Moxie Fab World Birthday Card Challenge.

supplies: Avery Elle Petals & Stems, Pale Tomato and Field Greens mid-tone inks, The Craft's Meow Lark Additions sentiment, Charcoal mid-tone ink

I masked off a large rectangle on my card and stamped my elements, also masking the flowers and leaves.  Thanks for visiting today!

Another 1-layer card

For the first part of last month, Hero Arts had a little 2-week challenge to make 1-layer cards.  I never shared this card here, so today's the day!  And I also want to enter it into the Moxie Fab World Birthday Card Challenge.

supplies: white cardstock, Hero Arts stamps Truly Appreciated (sentiment), Speckled Ornaments, Scattered Leaves, Luscious Frames, and HA inks Splash, Tide Pool, Soft Pool, Butter Bar and Green Hills, with an orange marker for a little detail

As I've done before, I masked off the area for the sentiment, but this time, I left a small area to have one of the flowers "falling" into the sentiment area.  

Thanks for visiting!

Simon's Summer Children's Challenge!!

YAY !! It's time for our Annual Summer Children's Challenge !! Woo Hoo !!

School has broken up for the summer and it is nice for our children to get crafty so this challenge is especially for them.

The theme for this challenge is ,,,

ANYTHING GOES,,, with the optional extra of ICE

ice cream, ice lollies, ice cubes, ice skating ,,, snow, snowflakes ,,,

Entrants must be between 2 and 16 years old 

We have not 1 but 3 fabulous Simon's Grab Bags up 

for grabs !!!

a surprise  parcel of crafty goodies ! We all like surprises eh ! :-)

So hide your copics before you let the kids in your craft rooms :-)

Hope you all have a great week :-)

 Happy Crafting

Welcome Summer

This was made for a challenge where the criteria was to use a floral paper, a doily, 3-dimensional flowers, and greenery.  To start, I chose this colorful design paper by My Mind's Eye from the Collectable collection called Notable.  I love it so much I bought 2 in the 12" size, plus the 6" pad that it is in, too.  It is just so summery to me.  So I used that as my floral background, and proceeded to build the rest of my card around it, using the colors I pulled from it:

supplies: ivory, gold, and Tide cardstock, MME Collectable Notable dp, others from the 6" pad of MME's Collectable Notable, Spellbinders Floral Ovals doily, Wplus9 Folk Art Florals (leaves), sentiment from Paper Smooches Summer Groves stamps, charcoal mid-tone ink and some die-cut daisies

As it turns out, I didn't enter the challenge because I didn't follow the directions explicitly, but I love it, and I hope it makes you smile.  Thanks for stopping by!

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

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

 This week it's everyone's favorite - Anything Goes!  The design team are all using Simon exclusives, and we'd love to see you using yours also, but it's not a requirement to enter our challenge.  Here's my card this week:

I think this Leanna butterfly die is absolutely the perfect butterfly!  I have always been a fan of anything filigree, so it is a must-have for me!  It's small enough to be added to other elements, but so beautifully detailed that it can stand alone.  Here I used a variety of pastel Basic Grey solid papers from several of their 6" pads and sprinkled my butterflies all across the surface, along with some tiny pearls in the same colors.  I thought that the sentiment from Simon's You set was just the right complement to them, large enough to be noticed, but small enough to not detract from the beautiful butterflies.

When I make my cards and photograph them, I then go to my computer and edit the photos with my card in view.  As I was editing this card, I glanced over and noticed how the bright track lights above my computer desk made these shadows and decided to share that with you also.

Heidi has again provided another $50.00 gift voucher to the Simon Says Stamp Store for the random winner of our challenge

Trendy Triangles

Cath has given us another fun challenge at Moxie Fab World, and she calls it Trendy Triangles.  I loved all the examples she showed us and I dived in later the same day and started experimenting.  But I came up with nothing that pleased me.  Until I was browsing on Pinterest and found this quilt, which hit all my buttons, and it was made of TRIANGLES!

This pin doesn't take me to any blog, but it is identified as being made by Ashli Smick, using Half Moon fabric.  I just loved her colors and the uses of the chevrons and big dotty fabrics.  So I spent an afternoon trying to find some papers from my stash that would recreate this wonderful quilt.  How'd I do?

These papers came from as many different pads as there are patterns here. As I always do, after piecing it together, I ran it through an embossing folder by Darice called Simple Interlock.  And I popped the pieced panel above my card base.  I know there isn't a sentiment on it, but a simple white banner can be added when/if I need one.

I love these kinds of designs, where your brain forms different shapes depending on what your eyes focus on......I can see an Ohio Star block, squares within squares, and pinwheels, just to name a few.

Thanks for visiting today!

Six for Six and my Hostess Picnic giveaway winner

Some business first.  I used Random.org to choose from among the comments left on my Picnic blog post, and the winner is Stacy K. Brais.  Congratulations, Stacy!

Flourishes is celebrating their 6th anniversary and this fun challenge called Six for Six gives us a recipe with 6 items we need to include on our cards!  A novel idea! 

Peach and green are so pleasing together!  Here's what I did:

supplies: white cardstock, papers from Graphic 45's Secret Garden pads and DCWV Garden Party (green background), white doily, Flourishes Botanical Bookplates Vol. 2, colored pencils and a green marker, Sizzix flowers embossing folder, peach ribbon, lace, pearls

Lilies of the valley are a sentimental favorite of mine, so I was thrilled when Flourishes made this stamp set. Thanks for a fun challenge, Flourishes, and Happy Anniversary!  Here's to at least 6 more!!