Not What I Was Going For ...

This card was supposed to be for todays Featured Stamper Challenge at Splitcoast Stampers; but this thing failed on a monumental scale so I won't be posting it. I don't want to insult the FS. LOL

I know it could probably use some pearls and a ribbon, but the ribbon was nixed because I could not find any pink that went with the card stock; and since the flowers were already a different color I thought three different shades of pink were pushing it.

I thought about adding a few of my much loved Kaisercraft pearls to liven it up, but decided I didn't want to waste them. I had a couple pearl stick pins coming from behind the flowers, but without a bow I thought it looked strange.

Maybe tomorrow I can take another try at this card. But for now this is it. It really needs help and any input is appreciated. :)

EDIT TO ADD:

I put two pearls on this card and now I'm happy with it. Sometimes I think I need to make a card, walk away from it for a day, then come back to it and look at it again.




Supplies:
Thanks For Caring set by SU!
SU Pink Pirouette; Very Vanilla; Basic Black card stock
Pink Pirouette and Basic Black ink
Spellbinders Fancy Labels and SU! Oval punches; Cuttlebug EF
Flowers by Prima (except the little off white ones; no clue where I came by those)
Kaisercraft pearls

Birthday Stars

This card is for week 11 of the Less Is More challenge. I have to say that the LIM challenge has become one of my favorites. Each week I wake up to check it out; however because I'm in Texas by time I look in, all the ladies in the UK have been at it for hours. Many times I look in the gallery to see cards already posted that popped into my head as I read the challenge instructions. There have even been a couple times I've made a card and then don't post it because someone else posts just ahead of me with a like design and I don't want anyone to think I pilfered their card. :( Anyway, Saturday morning I set the alarm for 3am thinking to get up and going with the UK ladies. So what do I see ..... Acetate!! UGH!! I went back to bed.

Thats right, acetate. This week was to use acetate and that is no easy task since I didn't even think I had any. When acetate first became a card making idea eons ago, I gave it a shot and decided acetate wasn't for me. So because I didn't have any and because I really do dislike the stuff, I decided I'd have to skip this week :(

When I did get up and going, I decided to make a couple cards for the Snippet challenge and while digging for DP in the bottom of my box, I find a quarter sheet of acetate. Woohoo!!! I can play along. I wracked my brain for the better part of the morning trying to come up with something. I figured I had one shot at it since my scrap was so small.

First, I cut a super small star and colored the edges with Stickles and liked how it came out. Unfortunately I tried to heat set it but that was a disaster; put the nix on that idea in the future. So I cut out three larger stars and edged each of them with a different color of Stickles (red, orange and yellow). I kept testing the dryness of the stars over the next couple of hours, but Stickles seem to require more drying time when on acetate so I wasn't able to get back to the card until this morning.

The layout is simple and clean so the focus could stay on the stars. I was going to use black for the sentiment, but decided red was dark enough. Now I'm questioning my use of yellow for the frame; maybe it should have matched the sentiment. No? Yes?

Oh well ... I am really pleased with how this turned out. I don't often use primary colors so I broke a few barriers today.

Thank you all for any comments you leave, it's much appreciated.

~carole~

This Time It's Right

This is my second attempt at this weeks Less Is More challenge. The rules are easy: make a one layer card with the sentiment as the focal point.

Unfortunately I'm stubborn; I could not let this challenge get the best of me; which it certainly did yesterday. I knew this morning on my drive into work that I just had to give this one more try tonight. At lunch I flipped through Splitcoast Stampers Inspiration threads hoping something there might ignite a fire, but no such luck. :(

However, when I arrived home I had a lovely small box from SU! waiting patiently on the front porch. In it was a stamp set called Style Beautiful. The minute I saw it I knew exactly what I wanted to do and it turned out exactly like I pictured it in my minds eye.

So here is how easy this card was:
Both sets are from SU!; the flourish is Style Beautiful and the sentiment is from It's Your Birthday.
I used Not Quite Navy craft ink for the sentiment and heat set with clear embossing powder.
Then using Soft Sky I somewhat framed the sentiment with one of the flourishes from the Style Beautiful set.
After that, I grabbed my much loved Kaisercraft pearls (Snow) and placed them over the spots on the image that had circles; and then adding a couple more in key spots to give it balance.

So here is a card I can happily post. I like the sentiment; I love the "frame"; I really like the Not Quite Navy with the Soft Sky and I especially love my bling. I took 18 pictures of this card, but have to admit, I wasn't able to capture how pretty it is IRL. :D

Thank you all for putting up with my whining yesterday. I will use the excuse that the long hours I put in last week to meet month end deadlines, along with this blasted vertigo left me with little patience to tackle OLC. Oh what a difference a good nights sleep and day make.

Three Tries -- Three Disasters

First and foremost - Thank you, thank you... Thank You everyone for all the lovely comments you left for me last week. It took me most of the week but I think I got back to all of you. If I missed anyone, send me a quick shout and I'll be sure to swing by. :)



Now on to a down week ..................The following cards were made for this weeks Less Is More Challenge. The challenge for week 10 was to make a one layer card with the sentiment as the focus. For those with talent, this challenge is probably a breeze. For a no-talent wannabe like myself ...........freaking Nightmare!!!!

I am a firm believer that the hardest cards to make are single layer cards. And I'm talking about cards made with real stamps and ink, not digi-cards; because you can layer and layer a digi-card and still have it be only "one" layer. True talent shines bright in one layer cards. I so admire women, and men, who can make OLC's that pop and make people take notice.

So enough of my unsolicited personal opinion.....

Here are the three nightmares I created and to be honest I really have no idea why I am posting these other than I am so mad at how much paper I have wasted trying to make a OLC, that I feel I need to post them. Oh and as a side note, I usually take a dozen or more pictures of every card I make to ensure I get at a least one clean shot. I couldn't be bothered to take more than one for each of these so the lighting is off and I actually cut off the top of the first card. Yes, I am truly that displeased with these cards.







The first card is the worse of the lot. I stamped a flower with Versamark ink then pulled out my old chalks and colored it in. I then stamped a lovely sentiment from Verve Stamps and the botched it with a ink smudge. I didn't even bother to try and hide it using photoshop. The flower screams and makes the sentiment secondary. So failure number one.

Card number two is a bit better, but then I made the mistake of looking at other cards and find that this one is lacking as well and is better suited to line my bird's cage. The lovely sentiment is by Verve Stamps and its called To Risk. The roses are from SU!s Elements of Life set, stamped out in Soft Sky (lovely shade of blue). Failure number two. GRRR

Card number three so so boring, I actually fell asleep while making it. The "sentiment" if you can call it that, is SU!'s Well Scripted. There should be laws in place to keep people like me from posting cards like this. :)

I should have just admired all the other cards out there and left this weeks challenge alone. Live and learn. I apologize for any nightmares these cards cause. Hopefully next week I can provide something pleasing and be forgiven. :D

Felt Flower Thank You

First I would like to say THANK YOU!!! to all the ladies that left me comments on my last card. I'm completely overwhelmed, in a good way, and promise to get back to each of you. I am half way through looking at everyone cards and leaving comments. A huge cyber hug to all!!

So for todays card, this is for todays sketch challenge at Splitcoast Stampers. I really love the simple layout; it just invites so many different ideas. This card is somewhat CAS, but two others I plan to make/finish are a bit more loaded down.

My lovely blog friend Jules, over at Always With A Heart, set up a challenge weeks ago to use up scraps (snippets) which most of us have. If you are like me, and Jules, you have a big box of scraps. However, I have even a bigger mess; embellishments. I have been stamping for 15 years, most of that towards cards, but there was a big gap there when I only did scrapbooking. Over the years I've purchased more embellishments that I "Just Had To Have" then I could ever use; and have never used. The felt flowers on this card are just such a purchase. They are from SU! however I really have no clue how old they are and I'll bet I bought them to use for scrapbooking pages. Anyway, I found them a few weeks back in the bottom of one of several boxes filled with embellishments. I pulled them out and kept them front and center in order to use them on something.

Well today was it! When I saw the sketch, I knew this was perfect for these flowers. Yeah!!!

Added bonus with todays card was I managed to use card stock from the scrap bin (if you look closely you'll notice that I wasn't able to get the textured white going in the same direction; not enough in the bin). The white card front is actually attached to plain white as there wasn't enough to do a full card fold. The light pink is SU! lovely Pink Pirouette, the green is Certainly Celery and I think the darker pink might be Rose Romance (retired). I used Kaisercraft pearls (now there is an embellishment that gets tons of use); pink/white twine and miscellaneous buttons. the sentiment is from Verve Stamps.

I might make a few more just like this one to use up the rest of those felt flowers and then put them all in my card bin. This bin is were I put cards that I either make multiples of, or cards that I don't like (they never see camera time). When my friends come over, they dig through the box and take what they want. [Note: Laurie is limited to three cards per visit because she would take them all and leave none for my other friends] LOL!!!

Thank you for stopping by, and as always, thank you for your comments, they are much appreciated.
Carole

A Touch of Red

This card is for Week 9 of the Less is More blogspot challenge; Jules Sunday Snippets; and SCS Featured Stamper Challenge. This weeks theme at Less is More is to use a touch of red. The inspiration came from this card at Splitcoast Stampers Featured Stamper challenge. And once again I was able to use all scraps.

This is actually the second card I made for this challenge. The first card is an odd size at 3x6. It's not very good, but I can add it to my basket of give away cards and I'm sure one of my friends will snag it. :)

Not much to tell about this card; I used SU!s whisper white, basic black and real red card stock. The stamp is from SU!s Asian Artistry; the sentiment from Verve's Wordy Birds set; the oval punches are SU! and the edge punch is Martha Stewart. And of course, I had to have bling, so I added red Kaisercraft pearls to the bottom edging. I'm thinking about putting some glitter on the butterflies ....... I might try it on that small first card I made.

Thank you for stopping by; your comments are greatly appreciated. I hope everyone has a wonderful Sunday.

Carole

Daffodils - A Happy Flower

Most who know me know I do not like the color yellow. Never have. So creating with yellow is a huge challenge for me. Be that as it may, when I saw the sketch challenge at Clean & Simple Stamping blog I knew exactly what I wanted to make .....right down to the yellow.



This came together really fast and was so easy; I watched a Harry Potter movie while making it. Well I suppose I should say listened to a Harry Potter movie because my vertigo is acting up and TV watching makes it worse. :) Anyway, I grabbed the Yoyo Yellow, some scrap Whisper White; a big scrap of some really old SU DP (at least I think it's SU) and a few punches. The leaves were made using one of Martha Stewarts punches. The flowers were made with SU!'s Boho Blossom and Itty Bitty Shapes punches. I cut the main panels and edged the green frame layer with Pear Pizzazz. After punching out the flower pieces, I sponged the edges with Yoyo Yellow. Using my stylus tool and mat, I formed the small flower into a bowl shape and dropped a spot of Stickles in the center (Orange Peal). Once that dried I put it all together and took a nap. LOL

Of the few yellow cards I've ever made in my life (this may actually be only the second one) I have to admit I really like how it came out. Since yellow is my Mom's favorite color, I think I might remake this one as a Mother's Day Card. It's not fancy, but I know she would appreciated the flowers. She loved her yellow daffodils and filled the flower beds of my childhood home with them each spring; along with white calla lilies which are one of my favorite.

Thank you much for stopping by.


Stamp set: SU! It's Your Birthday
Card stock: Whisper White; Yoyo Yellow; unknown dp
Ink: Yoyo Yellow; Pear Pizzazz
Other: Stickles (Orange Peal); Martha Stewart and SU! punches

Card Making is Therapeutic

It feels so go to make a card. It's not a very good one, but I am thrilled that I was even able to concentrate enough to pull it together. :D

This card is for three challenges. The first is SCS Ways to Use It (use handmade flowers); the second is for Less is More and the third is for my lovely blog friend, Jules', Sunday Snippet challenge.

The handmade tissue flower is my first. I've admired them for some time but I think mine is a bit off; I might have used a bit too much tissue. The tissue paper comes from Verve; however, its not purchased, it's actually the paper Julee wraps the stamps in for shipping. Instead of tossing the tissue, I set it aside from my last two purchases to use for just this purpose. The tissue is very close in color to SU! Cool Caribbean (one of my all time favorite colors). After cutting and placing the brad, I sprayed the tissue with Smooch Spritz simmer, sponged some Tempting Turquoise and Pacific Point around the edges and let it dry.

The brad was in the bottom of my stash, so I don't know where it came from. The leaves are Certainly Celery edged in Pear Pizzazz; the strip with the sentiment is Cool Caribbean. The sentiment is stamped in Tempting Turquoise (I should have used the Pacific Point, but oh well); the embossing is one of the Cuttlebug folders and the punches were all Martha Stewart.

So this is my first card in weeks and every bit of it is from the scrap bin. Though its never going to make my personal top ten, I have to admit it was nice to actually start and complete a card, and most importantly, to "want" to make a card. :)


So for any that want to know why I have been away, here is why.
I was schedule to take a vacation the second week of March, but unfortunately I came down with another bout of Vertigo. Vertigo is not life threatening, but it does take me down. Watching TV or working on the computer is very hard. Something about the screens intensifies the dizziness, so TV was completely out and very little time was spent on the computer. There is nothing they can do, I just have to let it "run its course". GRRR.

Then on the 14th, I got a call in the middle of the night; my Dad who has been in assisted living in Oregon was taken to the hospital. Before my brother could get to him (my brother lives in Northern California where I am originally from) my Dad passed away. Because I can't get on a plane with Vertigo, my brother had to take care of everything. I feel so horrible to have left him to deal with that all by himself. To top it off, he had to deal with our older half brother, who is vile. Our half brother did nothing for our dad his last year of life, in fact added stress to my dad's final year. After dad passed, his only interest was in the will and the money. My brother is awesome and handled it all with dignity and grace. I talked to him each day trying to lend support and once he was home, I called to tell him how much I love him, how proud I am to be his sister, and how much I appreciated how well he took care of dad in his final year. My younger brother is a wonderful example of how family should treat their elderly parents in their final days. He has shown his children, by example, how precious family is, even after they have passed.

So there it is; the vertigo is still hanging on and I have good days and bad days, but hopefully it will move on soon. I will try and catch up on all my saved blogs over the weekend and probably catch up on some challenges, even if they are closed.
Thank you for stopping by.
Carole