I started this card so I can play with my new skin tone copic markers. I need more practice with them, so I went the embossing route to give the stamp a different look. I was imitating the colors of asian lacquer pieces which are usually black, gold, and accents of red. This card is for the Sparkle Creation sketch challenge #71.
My card for SCRSC71.
The banner is pop-dotted and says "It's always springtime in a happy heart" which is the perfect sentiment for this image.
I usually don't make valentines. Deep in my heart, I'm a romantic; but I always feel kind of goofy when I try for romance and lace. With Valentine's day around the corner, though, I put myself to the challenging task of making a valentine. It turned out fun and bright although I had started out with the plans for romantic vintage. lol See how easily I get sidetracked? I do like the way it turned out, so I can't complain.
I was strolling through my email when my eye caught this picture in an email post.
It's called the Ribbon Carousel and you can find information about it at the Ribbon Carousel blog. Doesn't it look fabulous?! I don't have one (yet) but I'm thinking this could very well solve my ribbon problems. Ribbon Carousel is also having a Carousel giveaway. Yes, they are actually giving away one of these little babies!! Click on over to their blog and enter to win.
While you are there, visit their shop and look at all the new colors of twine and wide variety of ribbons that are available.
The minute I read about the Stampendous Bling challenge, these stamps popped in my mind. I knew they would be perfect with a rhinestone right in the middle for a little added sparkle and glitter.
I really like the simplicity of the black and white. The big bonus was the easy color matching. LOL Kind of a no-brainer with this color scheme.
I also made this card for the "Anything Goes" Simon Says Challenge. This challenge is open until Wednesday, February 1. The Stampendous Bling challenge is open until February 2. Still plenty of time to enter both challenges! Go check them out.
This card is also for the 52 Card Pick-up--Week 4 on the Old Back Porch blog. The idea is to make a card every week for a year hence the name 52 Card Pick-Up. No requirements, sketches or color limits, just sharing a card a week simply for the sake of creating. Come join the fun.
Tell if you are a tea drinker or a coffee drinker. Leave a comment on their blog telling which you drink. One person out of every 25 comments to win the following "To Go Cup" and Hopscotch Sentiment stamps.
You have till the end of day (11:00 pst) Wednesday, January 25th to leave a comment.
You still have time!!! Quick, head on over and enter into the drawing for a set of awesome stamps/.
Unscripted Sketches had a piggyback sketch challenge this week and Runway Inspired Challenges had an inspiration challenge.
Sketch Runway Inspired
Challenge photo
I can honestly say I could not and would not wear that dress. lol I like the rainbow affect, but not quite my style.
I wasn't sure what I wanted in my pocket when I began making my card. When I make a card, I tend to play and let it develop instead of having a design in mind. I then found this awesome stamp and knew exactly what I wanted in that pocket.
card bookmark
The dress is completely covered in glitter. It looks beautiful in real life.
First, I love polar bears. I love all animals, but polar bears are an awesome, amazing animal! When I read about the Lawnscaping winter challenge, I knew it wanted the focal point to be a polar bear. I used The Craft's Meow sketch to design the card.
my card
I used paper that I had in my stash forever. YEAH! I'm trying to be very good and use up my old stash so I can organize my craftroom a little better and to buy new supplies without the guilt. This is one of my favorite images. It's so sweet with the mama bear and her cub.
You still have time to enter both challenges. The Lawnscaping Challenge is open until January 25 and the Craft's Meow sketch challenge is open until February 14. Click on over to the blogs and check out all cute cards and enter a card of your own!
Today I combined the Inspired by #7 photo inspiration with the Simon Says Sketch Challenge. I chose the wedding part of the photo (although I would love a pair of those tennis shoes) with the colors--blue, white, and yellow and then threw in the pink for the sweet happiness of a wedding. The sketch was fun to play with. I used my blending pen with my ink pads to color the rose so it matches as close as possible.
The next card is a combination of Just Us Girls #120 and the Splitcoast Stampers sketch challenge #368. Another fun sketch full of possibilities and an awesome color challenge consisting of pink, red, and white. Although I could have made a Valentine's card, I elected to make another birthday card. In a family of seven sibling, six of us have birthdays in March plus we have my parent's wedding anniversary in the same month. I need the birthday cards. lol
So far today, this is the only card I made. I went for the tongue-in-cheek approach with a pun and visual funny for the card. I made it based on the sketch challenge by Skipping Stones design. You still have time to enter. The challenge doesn't end until Monday.
Inspiration sketch
my card for SSD #111
I thought this was funny. When I saw the sketch, the first thing I saw was the four circles. As I went through my stamps, I saw this shoe stamp which is one of my favorites. That is when the "Just 4 Shoe" (Just for you) hit me and I went with it. It's kind of goofy, but that's what happens when I make cards while taking Nyquil. lol
I made this layout for the Studio Calico Sunday Sketch challenge. I used my favorite picture of my kids. We were on a "photo shoot" when the kids found this tree that they thought was so cool. They started goofing around and I continued to shoot. After coming home, I found this little gem. It captured each child's personality so completely all at the exact moment! When I saw the sketch, I knew this was the photo I wanted to highlight.
STUDIO CALICO SUNDAY SKETCH:
My layout based on the sketch:
My card is for the Blockhead's Out of the Box Diecut challenge. This was a new technique for me which means I had to try it right away. lol It was a lot easier than I anticipated and I will use it in the future.
Blockheads Challenge: Out of the Box Die Cutting Technique Blog Hop
To Take our Challenge: Visit Blockheads' Out of the Box Die Cutting Technique Page and create your own out-of-the-box creation, create a blog post that includes the link code, which creates links to other participants, then submit your URL by clicking the button below. Links will be removed that don't include the code.
Congratulations to Anna Karin, the Design Team's pick for the $25 gift certificate this month. Feel free to submit to the challenge even though the deadline has passed. You'll still be included in the blog-hop and readers would love to see your example.
Code to Paste into the html code of your blog post: <!-- start InLinkz script --> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.inlinkz.com/cs.php?id=114055"></script> <!-- end InLinkz script -->
Blockheads Challenge: Out of the Box Die Cutting Technique Blog Hop
To Take our Challenge: Visit Blockheads' Out of the Box Die Cutting Technique Page and create your own out-of-the-box creation, create a blog post that includes the link code, which creates links to other participants, then submit your URL by clicking the button below. Links will be removed that don't include the code.
Congratulations to Anna Karin, the Design Team's pick for the $25 gift certificate this month. Feel free to submit to the challenge even though the deadline has passed. You'll still be included in the blog-hop and readers would love to see your example.
Code to Paste into the html code of your blog post: <!-- start InLinkz script --> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.inlinkz.com/cs.php?id=114055"></script> <!-- end InLinkz script -->
This card is for Unscripted Sketch 141. It's a nice sketch with lots of possibilities. I flipped it to get a horizontal placement which is what I wanted for this card.
My card
I didn't care for it until I added the ribbon, That was the perfect touch to complete it.
I have to say, I've loving my copics. I'm just starting to use them, so my coloring is very basic, but they are so fun to use! I've already decided to buy 2-3 copics every payday so I can fill out my colors to start practicing shading and highlighting.
That being said, my first card is for Paper Smooches. They are having a guest designer search for the month of February. I used one of their digi stamps (and copics) to make my card.
The digi stamp was a bee and I made it a fish with a little fussy cutting to go with my saying.
The next card is for a Sketch For You To Try. This sketch challenge is usually open until midnight EST on the last day of the month so you still have plenty of time to play if you choose to do so.
Inspiration sketch
My card (SFYTTjanuary 2012)
You can't really see it in the picture, but the S is stickled for a little sparkle. I played around with my new Martha Stewart punch, too. I need to invest in several of the spellbinder scrolled frames. I love the look of them. In the meantime, I have to make do with what I have on hand.
Simon Says has a challenge going using spots and stripes. Anything goes as long as it includes spots and stripes. I LOVE spots and stripes so this one was really fun. I wanted to use a stamp I haven't used before. When I went through my paper and saw this combo, I immediately thought of the sea and everything fell into place.
Simon Says Spots and Stripes Challenge
I lightly chalked the image to give it a little interest. I thought the sentiment was perfect for this card.
My Blogger's Challenge card was a little more...well, challenging. I wanted to emboss the image on vellum, but it lack pizzazz. That's when I colored on the back and added rhinestones because, quite frankly, rhinestones add just the right amount of bling to anything. lol
Simply Create Too has a challenge going on. The challenge is layers--lots of layers. The challenge ends January 19, so you still have plenty of time to participate.
This is one of my favorite stamps from The Angel Company. All the fun and beauty of collage without the pain. lol I'm very collage deficient, although I do like the look, so stamps like this are a blessing, :)
Really Reasonable Ribbon is celebrating the 2nd blogoversary. In honor of their two years of blogging, they are giving someone a chance to win an awesome prize package loaded with lots of goodies. If you like ribbon or twine, you will love Really Reasonable ribbon. Click on the link and go check it out.
I chose the top row--text, bling and flower. I love these kind of challenges because there are so many possibilities. Very fun. Here is the card I made:
PPC 49
Now, I'm not usually a pink girl, but this card just screamed pink to me. lol I'm very pleased with how it came out. In fact, I think this might be one of my favorites.
I love Saturdays where nothing is planned for the day. No sporting events to get the kids to, no appointments, nothing. I spent my day being creative which doesn't happen very often. The family wasn't neglected while I was playing. The kids and daddy enjoyed the day watching movies, playing on the x-box, and just relaxing. I even made blueberry muffins to start the day off right.
Here is what my creative day produced. The first card is for the Sparkle Creations Rubber Stamp Challenge #70. The challenge was to use something new. See that lovely border ribbon? New punch!! Whoo-hoo! I love this image although I do have a hard time coloring her. I'm still working and practicing with my prismacolor pencils and my copics.
SCRSC70
My next card is for Mojo Monday 223. Here is the inspiration sketch:
My card:
Mojo223
Lots of distressing done with this card. I don't normally do "vintage", but this one really needed the distressing and inking to give it personality. I have discovered that I really need to invest in several large circle dies.
This one is for the Young Crafters Unit challenge #5. Clean and simple was the challenge. You would think clean and simple would also mean quick. lol Not in my case. This card (although not all that complicated) seem to take me forever!!
Wee Memories has a challenge for mini cards. Now, this is something new for me because I usually do the 5 1/2 x 4 1/4 size cards since you can get two good size cards with no waste. The one thing I learned doing mini cards--scale down. The first focal point I did for the mini card was bigger than the card itself! LOL Lesson learned. After the first mistake, I decided to go simple and came up with this card.
WMC82
Three stamps, two inks, corner rounder and rhinestones. The card was done in about 15 minutes from start to finish. New record for me! :)
Visit the Wee Memories Challenge blog to see all the wonderful mini delights other participants created to fulfill the challenge.
This is a quick card I made for the Unscripted Sketch #140 challenge. It's an okay card, but I wish I had a funkier U.
Unscripted Sketch #140
Even though it's not my favorite, it's another thank you card made and ready to send. Once I beef up my thank you cards, I'll start working on birthday. My goal for the next school year is to give everyone at my workplace a homemade birthday card for their birthday.
It's amazing how life gets busy so quickly! Kids and their homework, school, taking an online class, working, . . .
I still managed to make a card for a challenge. I find challenges inspiring and fun. They are making me try new things and techniques I haven't tried before which is great! I love trying and learning new things. Keeps the creative juices flowing.
This card is for the Sweet Sunday Sketch challenge 149. The cute stamp is from Sparkle Creations rubber stamps. This is the first time I used her and the first time I tried paper piecing with a stamp. I love how this one turned out even if it has orange on it! lol
