Less Is More Week 20

The ladies at Less Is More challenged the LIMette's to make a monogram card. I thought ... easy. I have a couple really nice stamps that fit this one.... unfortunate for me, so did Nellie and Creative Seconds (though mine is somewhat different) and they were hot out of the gate (and not procrastinating like myself) and got their beautiful creations in before I could even find my stamps. LOL

So not feeling very creative over the last couple weeks, I decided to blow off this weeks challenge (every challenge for that matter, not just LIM). However, last evening I needed to make a thank you card for a kindness someone had done for me so I took the opportunity to work it up as a challenge card. This is it.


Thanks for stopping by.

Supplies:
SU! Just K stamp set
SU Baja Breeze ink and card stock
VersaMark ink (to emboss the K)
Clear embossing powder
Georgia Pacific white card stock
Spellbinders

Tuesday Trigger ... And Sunday Snippets

One of the blogs I follow belongs to Joan Ervin who makes some fabulous cards. Well this week she had a post for a challenge called Moxie Fab World: Tuesday Trigger. Her card was so beautiful (seen here) that I had to hop on over to the challenge blog and check it out. This card is the result.

I admit, I was more inspired by Joan's gorgeous card than anything else. The second I saw her card, I envisioned the card above. EDIT: Guess it would help if I added the challenge inspiration photo .... Blond ... I tell you I am blond!!!


My original plan was to use one of my background stamps from SU! called Bella Toile; emboss clear onto white card stock and then sponge on a couple different shades of blue, but I can't find my stamp!! Big surprise that, when one considers the chaos my craft room is in. So instead I went digging through my scrap box because I had seen a toile patterned DP in there the other day. Was I ever surprised when I figured out that the DP was SU! and the pattern was the exact same as the stamp I was looking for. To be honest, the only reason I know the DP is SU! is because the pattern is a match for the stamp. LOL

Anyway, I dug into the scrap bin a bit more and came out with what I believe is the last scrap of textured Blue Bayou. I grabbed a sheet of Baja (one of my favorite colors) to use for the card base then set about pulling this together. Though the inspiration picture has a large silver art piece on the wall, I steered away from that and just went with the blues.

With only the one scrap of Bayou I had just enough to frame the DP. Once I sized that out, I tried to make two die cuts fit in the center without compromising the "layer". I wanted to make a stacked sentiment frame, but there wasn't enough room so I had to settle for just the one fancy frame with the white circle sentiment piece. If I ever find another piece of Bayou big enough to cut the larger fancy frame, I'll take this card apart and re-layer it. :) I placed the ribbon and sentiment frame lower on the card instead of in the center so that there is more of the pretty DP showing.

The ribbons were in my scrap jar so I don't know where they came from. The pearls are Kaisercraft (Snow) and the lovely mulberry closed rose buds are from the UK.
EDIT: Thank you KIM!! The roses are from Wild Orchid Crafts out of the UK. It took me forever to figure out where some of the ladies at SCS were getting them. Once I did, I went a bit crazy ordering the 4MM & 6MM roses.

So this is my take on the Tuesday Trigger .... inspired by Joan's fabulous card.....Sure wish I had more of this DP, but I suppose I can make this again once I find my stamp; now if I can just get my hands on more textured Blue Bayou. :) I have an added bonus challenge here because all but the base on this card is from the scrap box, so I get to submit this for Jules' Sunday Snippet Challenge over at Always With A Heart. Woohoo!


Well it's 1 am and I'm still not tired ... oh well, sometimes good things happen when one has insomnia. :)

It's Monday .....

.... my favorite day of the week!! I'd like to give the ladies at Mojo Monday the credit for Monday being my favorite day, but the truth is, it's always been my favorite day. Monday's are what I consider a fresh start; it's a whole new week to make a difference or save the world. Since I'm not likely to be doing any world saving, I'll have to settle for making a difference in some small way. :)

Today's sketch challenge over at Mojo Monday is wonderful. I'm working from home today and could not help myself, I had to stop and make a card. I just love how this card turned out. The colors in this DP set are fabulous. I love blues and greens and when the two marry and make BlueGreen... well then I'm in heaven.

I took an extra fine Prisma marker to the sentiment and gave it a bit of a broken outline. You can see it if you enlarge the card all the way. I was thrilled that it showed up in the picture.

Not much in the way of supplies but here is the list:
Stamp: Verve
Paper: Bazzill textured black and white (reverse side); Kaisercraft DP Chapter One
Extras: SU! ribbon, Kaisercraft pearls, SU! punches; Prisma Marker Black




Thank you for stopping by and Happy Monday!!!

PS - If you are thinking to yourself "What kind of a freak likes Mondays???"; you are not alone. Every single one of my friends states my love of Mondays (all on it's own) qualifies me for the "freak of nature" title; we won't get into the other long list of reasons I'm holding that title. :D

Mojo Monday 193 - Party Animal

I haven't participated in Mojo Monday in some time, but I really liked the layout this week and needed a card for my nephew so thought I'd jump in. Of course the cut-off is minutes away, nothing like racing the clock. :)

I'm so pleased with how this card turned out. I bought this DP in error and thought I would be hard pressed to use it, but it really was a great choice for this sketch challenge. Not much more to say about the card other than I plan to add a layer of Stickles (Star Dust) to the blue frame to match the sparkle on the lions ruff.




Supplies:
Stamp: SU! It's Your Birthday
Ink: Momento Black
Paper: Kaisercraft 6x6 Party Animal; SU! Pumpkin and textured white; Bazzill Horizon
Extras: Maya Road Trinket pins; Stickles

Thanks for stopping by.
Carole

My Favorite Color Is .......

......... Blue!!! All shades of blue. Well and green too; I love both colors but when I saw the Less Is More challenge this morning I knew I wanted to use blues.

I made two cards because with my first card (below) I went just a bit overboard with the pearls. I still love it, but after it was done, I thought it would look even better with some circle cut-outs popped up and rhinestones instead of pearls. Give it a bit of sparkle. :)






I used a couple old SU! sets called Simple Shapes (2003) and Spring Solitude (Hostess set I think). As you can see, I had trouble with getting a fully inked image from the Simple Shapes set, I think that is why I haven't used it since I bought it. Even so, I still like these cards and I will enjoy making them in a few more colors to give to friends as Christmas Gifts. The inks are a mixture of SU! and Ranger inks; Cool Caribbean and Pacific Point (SU!); Tumbled Glass and Broken China (Ranger Distressed). The pearls on the card to the left are by Hero Arts and the rhinestones on the top card are Prima Marketing. I used Cool Caribbean and Pacific Point scraps and the bases were both in the scrap bin as well so I'm not sure of the manufacturer.


Now for the really fun part .... my new camera arrived Thursday night!! I bought a Nikon P500 which has a wonderful wide angle lens and high def capability. I used it to take pictures of the cards, but have to admit I'm still playing with all the settings. This camera is small/light weight; I can view what I'm taking a picture of from the viewer or from the display screen just by a flick of the switch and again, the wide angle lens is amazing. It has one drawback, it does not have an auto off, so I accidentally drained the battery last night. :( It seems really odd that a digital camera doesn't have an "auto off" feature, but then maybe it does and I just have to keep working my way through the booklet. :)





Thank you for looking in and all comments are much appreciated.

Happy Saturday
Carole