Sunday is Snippet Day .....

It's week 42 of Jules' Sunday Snippet Challenge over at Always With A Heart. I can't believe it's already been 42 weeks. I remember the Sunday Jules' set the challenge for herself and thought it was a good idea so I joined in.



Sadly, I haven't made a dent in my snippets; I think those scraps of paper procreate at night while I'm sleeping. LOL!! Of course my snippet box isn't just cut scraps from some other project. A heavy number of my scraps/snippets are cards that didn't turn out so the whole thing gets dumped into the scrap box. That is the case with todays card.

This card was originally intended for Less Is More (Wk34 Sketch Challenge) and the snippet challenge for week 38. Obviously it never made it to either challenge. Today as I was digging for some white card stock I decided to give it another go. I trimmed down the original single layer base then added a nice framed layer of black and popped it back onto a different base card. I added some black Stickles to the butterfly to give it some sparkle as it looked kind of dull next to the speciality paper. Though I don't really care for the sentiment, and may try and wiggle it off, over all I'm very please with this second version. The sentiment is there because it was the placment for the sketch challenge; however I don't like sentiments dropped in big open spaces. I tend to keep everything together if I add a sentiment at all. If I manage to get rid of that sentiment without doing damage to the card I'll repost a picture.

The card stock is retired SU! Presto Patterns Speciality paper; the Crushed Curry ink and colored card stock is also retired. The Spellbinder dies are from the Fancy Tags One and Fleur de Lis squares. The pearls are Kaisercraft and the butterfly is Martha Stewart. Unfortunately I can't remember which set the sentiment came from, but it's SU!.

Below is one of the pictures I took of the card before it hit the bin last month. The jewelry was too much with only the curry frame on and single layer base. I'm sure I'll try and use the jewelry piece again, and hopefully it will work out next time.

A Masculine Birthday Wish - LIM#7

This will have to be my final entry for the this weeks Less is More challenge. My mom is here for a visit and I've been sneaking into the craft room for three days to make cards whenever she gets distracted. Not a very good way for me to spend time with her. I'll make it up to her over the rest of the week. :)

Anyway, this lovely card came together so nicely and quite by accident. I was tossing about in the scrap bin and put the center oval to the side to see if I could make use of it. A bit later I tossed the die-cut to the side (where it landed on top of the oval) and thats when I saw that the two together looked rather nice. The center oval is a scrap of some unknown DP (wish I did know because it is lovely); the black die-cut is by Memory Box. The sentiment panel was cut from a piece of scrap using Old Olive along the inner edge before I removed the Spellbinder die to give it some depth. The sentiment is from SU! called Sincere Salutations and it is popped up on dimensionals.

So I guess since this one is scraps, I can submit this for Jules Sunday Snippets as well.

I've decided this is a nice masculine card, good colors and not too fancy but with just enough flare to keep it from being too plain.

So good luck to Mandi and Chrissie; I'll try and check back in before I head out tonight and hopefully the 1000 mark will be met.

Flowery Thank You - LIM#6

This is submission number six for this weeks Less Is More challenge; which is to get to 1000 submissions in honor of reaching 1000 Followers.

This card will also get tossed into Jules Sunday Snippet challenge bacause its all scraps. In fact if you look closely, you can see how messed up the tag is, I had to squeeze the bit of green to make it work and it is tucked under the rosette because it didn't quite make it to the end of the sentiment panel. LOL!!

Just a Note = LIM#5

I can't believe how many cards I've made this week. They are simple obviously but not normal for me to make up this many cards. However I just had to keep going to help along with the Less Is More challenge this week which is to hit 1000 submissions. So with that .......



This is very plain but sometimes one needs a card that isn't bulky so it can actually go in the post without a special envelope. So I avoided adding pearls to the butterfly and no ribbon. :)

This is also done with scraps so I'm going to enter it into Jules Sunday Snippets challenge which I haven't done in many weeks.

Thanks for stopping in.
Oh and hugs to Mandi and Chrissie.... you ladies amaze me.

Paper and butterfly are Basic Grey's Out Of Print line. SU Sentiment from Sweet Little Sentiments

22....23....24....25.....26...............

The following is my submission for the Less Is More challenge #26.... and 25 .... and 24 ..... and 23 ...... and 22........... LOL LOL

I've been really busy over the last month at work with budget season in full swing, and here at home finally getting my craft room done. So while I tried to make cards, I didn't finish most of them by the deadlines and for all of them, was too lazy to pull out the photo tent to take pictures. I hope you don't mind the huge post, but feel free to blow past everything below the current challenge. :D

LIM#26 Something Fruity
I bought this Unity stamp because I liked the way it looked, but then couldn't think of a darn thing to do with it. Thankfully I did buy it because of all the stamps I own, this is the ONLY one with fruit. Butterfly and birds stamps i have by the dozens, but fruit stamps .....





If you look carefully you'll see that the pear with the dark label has a very slightly different stamped image. That is due to the card stock. My Big Shot die plates are really old and all the cuts in it leave an impression on card stock. So now days I use an extra piece of white on top of whatever I'm cutting so the "cuts" in the plate don't come through onto the piece I'm cutting. Well when I was trying to decide how to color the stamp, I reached for a scrap piece of white to see how the Pear and Artichoke looked together. It looked good so I colored the stamp again and stamped it out on a clean piece of CS (light colored labeled card). It was then that I noticed how the scrap piece had taken the ink and I really liked the effect. So I cut both the good image and the scrap image down and made two cards. :)
~Unity Stamp; Pear Pizazz and Always Artichoke card stock and ink; twine; Memory Box Pastry Labels die~


LIM#25 Ribbon & Buttons and Sunday Snippets #30
This first card was inspired by a couple of ladies on blogspot though I can't remember where I saw their cards (I think one is Shirley's); however I remember loving the pink with the black. So I made a flower, found a pretty bright pink button, pulled out two pieces of pink ribbon and pearls and ta-da ..... a very busy and very not CAS card. **sigh**
So I went back to the drawing board and made the kite card. I used the fabulous ribbon as the inspiration for coloring (the wonderful ribbon was gifted to me by one of my very favorite blog friends), dug through my Basic Grey and SU! buttons, trimmed out the kites with a scrap of blue and called it done. Much more CAS than the first one; and though I don't normally get into really bright colors, I have to admit I really like how this turned out. :) With the exception of the ribbons, all the pieces of these cards are scraps. Even the kites; as they were in this little box I have where I toss aside stamped images that I start to use, but then change my mind.
~Verve sentiments; unknown kite stamp; Spellbinders fancy tags die; Kaisercraft pearls; scrap ribbon and card stock~







LIM#24 Circles and Sunday Snippets #30
I made the first card from kraft paper, loved it, but thought it was too busy for LIM. So I made the second card late in the week but I don't really care for it because it's too plain and too washed out; but at least it has big open white (or in this case vanilla) space. :D Oh and absolutely everything on these cards is fromthe scrap bin so it qualifies for Sunday Snippets. :)
~Unknown DP; SU card stock; Cuttlebug die cut~






LIM#23 One Layer Card /Something with Legs
BooHiss .... I do not like OLC. Period. End of story. Like the cat stamp though. :D
~Unknown cat stamp; Verve sentiment stamp; Faber-Castell watercolor pencils~




LIM#22 Shades of Blue and Sunday Snippets #30
Blue is one of my favorite colors; so you'd think I would be able to make something decent. Not so in this case. This card ranks as one of the all time ugliest cards I have ever made. It simply did not gel. Love the paper and the colors, dislike how blah it looks. However there is always a bright spot .... all the paper on this card is from the scrap bin, so it serves the purpose of lowering the bin level. :D
~Verve stamp; Kaisercraft pearls; unknown ribbon and DP, however I think the DP might be Tim Holtz~

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. :)

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

A Few Less Is More.....

Oh that was a nice play on words. :)



This is my submission for Week 17 of the Less Is More challenge: this weeks theme is Pick-a-Square. I went with the center square for few reasons. 1 - I threw my back out and can hardly move so I had to be able to make something fast and easy. 2 - I bought these adorable little felt stars awhile back and have yet to use them and thought this was a wonderful layout to highlight them. 3 - These were the only supplies I could reach.
Which pretty much means the last reason is the entire driving force behind this card. LOL!!!




LIM & SNIPPETS Challenge Card.


Also included here are the LIM challenge cards from weeks 15 and 16. I missed the deadlines for both weeks due to being away from home. My BBF Kim had surgery a couple weeks ago, and I took some vacation time to assist her until she could move about and drive on her own. Of course now she's over here taking care of me due to my back. What a crazy situation.

Anyway I really love each of these cards because they are so bright and cheerful IRL. The butterfly was sprayed with Gingersnap Smooch and has a lovely sparkle to it. It also has the added bonus of being all scraps so I can submit it for Jules' Snippet Sunday Challenge. The Embossed card has Cotton Candy Stickles on each of the little flower thingies giving it color and sparkle. I don't think the embossed card would have qualified anyway because the sentiment is in fact a layer, and the challenge called for an embossed OLC. Guess its ok I missed that deadline after all. :D

Thank you for stopping in. Hope you all have been enjoying the three day holiday.

Carole

Star card:
SU white texture CS; Unknown SU stamp; Pebbles Felt Star

Embossed Flower card:
Stamps: Penny Black Constellations; SU! Sweet Little Sentiments; SU Black Craft ink and SU Clear embossing powder; Very Vanilla CS; Memory Box Die (Pastry Labels); Cotton Candy Stickles.

Butterfly Card:
Stamp-Technique Tuesday Wingin' It; SU! White Textured Paper; Basic Grey Ambrosia; SU! Black Craft ink and clear embossing powder; Smooch Gingersnap spritz and Kaisercraft black pearls.

Snippets Get Well

This card it for my lovely blog friends weekly Snippet Challenge. Please drop by Jules' Always With A Heart blog and check out her beautiful creations. She makes some very wonderful cards with snippets.

My card is pretty simple. It's a Get Well card for my best friend Kim who had surgery on Monday. She came home Thursday and is doing very well.

The card was not my original idea. I had tried to make a really fancy card with Crystal Effects, beads, acetate (Yea .. .that right there should have told me to just forget it) and several mulberry flowers. Unfortunately, I have never used Crystal Effects before to the degree I was attempting, and the card fail. :(

So this card here is what I tossed together ..... super fast. Lavender is Kim's favorite color so I dug through my scraps and found BG's Wisteria to use for the back panels. The layout is not mine; I've seen many cards at SCS and Blogspot using this same layout so I think it may have been a challenge somewhere at some time.

I took these pictures just before I ran to the hospital to visit her and decided that it was too plain. So I worked the bow a bit more and then added two pearl stick-pins and a few more pearls to the DP panels before heading out.

Kim loves all things handmade so I wasn't too concerned that it wasn't good enough. I will try my idea again with the Crystal Effects someday; after I play with the CE a bit more and become comfortable with it.

Thanks for stopping in. Happy Sunday.
Carole

SUPPLIES:
Stamp: SU! Teeny Tiny Wishes
Paper: Basic Grey Wisteria, SU Lavender Lace; White is unknown scrap
Ink: Dusty Concord Distressed Inks
Extras: Ribbon SU super old, Kaisercraft Pearls
Punches by SU!

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

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

Sunday Snippets - Week 9

I'm a bit late with my snippets card(s) this week and I still have two more to finish. The following cards are for a fun challenge that one of the wonderful blog ladies I follow has set up for herself and invites anyone to play along. If you pop over to Always With A Heart you'll find some fabulous creations that Jules makes from her snippets (or scraps).

The cards I'm posting tonight have a bit of a story behind them. My BBF, Laurie, is one of the biggest fans of my cards. I think I could give her the ugliest card on the planet and she would still love it. Truly an amazing and loving friend. Well this last weekend, she and her girls went to Michael's and bought me several packs of stickers. They were so excited to gift them to me to use on my cards. I squealed with delight, thanked them, hugged them and gushed over the stickers a few more times before their visit ended. The problem is, I don't use stickers, never have. I really don't care for them to be honest, but I refuse to hurt their feelings so I have set myself to the task of making a set of cards to give to them for their use. :)

The first card posted is the one I actually like the most, It came together in about 10 minutes and most of that was looking for the right color of card stock in the scrapbox. It's 5x5 and has a birthday verse on the inside. I used Spellbinders for the frame and the bling is from Close To My Heart. The scrap is Orchid Opulence (I think) and the stickers for all four of these cards came from a set made by Punch Studio.






The card with the birthday cake is A4 size. I used Cuttlebugs Happy Birthday embossing folder in the bottom layer, and framed the sticker with Pretty In Pink for the frame. The ribbon is scrap so I know not where it came from, and the bling is Close To My Heart.

The two gift cards are 3x3 and have simple Spellbinder frames in Pretty In Pink and I think Marina Mist. Again, everything is scraps so I have to guess at the colors. :)

Thank you for stopping in.

Sunday Snippet Card - Week 8

I had so much fun making this card. I've been kicking this idea around for weeks and finally decided to turn it into a real card.

I actually like this little card so much I might make a few more. The hardest part of it was that little flag piece; next time I'm just going to color it instead of cutting it out of cardstock. LOL

The adorable sailboat is from Verve's Text Objects set and the sentiment is from SU!s Teeny Tiny Wishes (a much favored set of mine). Everything is paper pieced or punched with the sails and sun popped up on demensionals. I made the sun by punching out a circle (1 3/8ths inch) and then cutting inward from the outer edge to an imagined center circle in semi even intervals. Once all the cuts were done, I folded every other cut piece towards the center, trimmed them half way down the length, and then applied a layer of glue to the backsides to adhere them to the underside of the center. I like how it turned out.

All the paper used to make this card is from the scrap bin (snippets) so I'm not too sure on a couple of the colors. My best guess is as follows: Summer Sun (??), Real Read, Lovely Lilac, Brilliant Blue (??), Tempting Turquoise, Cool Caribbean and Whisper White. The white sail is from a piece of DP that was covered in little hearts on branches. No clue who made it as it is years old. The ink is Basic Black.



Thanks for looking in.

SCS Challenges - Inspiration and Featured Stamper

It was nice to do some crafting today. After being home so much over the last several weeks due to weather, work was pretty harsh this last week and I wasn't able to do any creating. Long hours had me crawling home and falling straight into bed each night, only to have that blasted alarm go off within minutes (well it seemed like minutes) of my head hitting the pillow. But we should be caught up by Tuesday and back to a normal pace by weeks end.

This first card is for the Sunday Featured Stamper challenge at SCS. I cased this lovely card by Willow. I used SU!'s Shimmery White card stock and two old "In" colors; Marigold Morning and Tangerine Tango and accented with basic black. Not sure who makes the EF but it ripped every piece of paper I tried; I even moistened it, but it still cracked. Oh well, just adds to the creative process. I used both the Marigold and Tangerine on the butterfly by dabbing the edges before stamping. The lovely DP is Basic Grey's Ambrosia. The whole card has a nice shimmer and looks much nicer IRL.




This second card is for the Saturday Inspiration challenge at SCS where the idea is to use the provided pictures, or in this case site, and create a card. This week Stef sent us to a blog site for weddings called Santa Barbara Chic. I admit I spent the better part of last night and well into the early hours of the morning looking at everything and clicking on the links provided. One of the features on this blog are regular posts titled "Shoesday" where the picture is of a very chic pair of shoes. In my youth I was always buying chic shoes, loved my shoes. I'd even go without food to get my hands on a cute pair of shoes...... hmmmm... maybe that is why I was so thin. I may have to take up this obsession again. LOL
Anyway, this post was the inspiration for my card.

I made this card after the FS card so I had plenty of black and shimmery white scraps which makes it qualify for Jules Crafty Snippet Challenge at Always With A Heart. Drop on over to visit Jules, she does some really amazing cards with her scraps.

Both cards are made with SU!s Bliss set. This one is fast becoming my favorite.

Thank you for stopping in.

Sunday Scrap Bin Card

This card is for a challenge that the wonderful and creative Jules at Always With A Heart has going. The challenge is to only use scraps; no cutting into a new sheet of DP, card stock or ribbon. No stamping other than piece work, or a sentiment; embellishments are ok; even better if its made from scraps. This card is also for SCS Saturday Inspiration challenge #270.

It's a bit early for my Sunday submission, however I wanted to get this up as I'm going out tonight for my best friends 40th birthday celebration. I have one other scrap card in the works which I hope to finish up tomorrow.

For this card I used textured whisper white and purely pomegranate from SU, one Kaisercraft pearl and a wonderful pewter heart by Magenta which I've had for years. The card is just shy of 5x5, and the frame layers have some blemishes that are well hidden by the stacking. The bottom frame layer has a big scallop hole right in the middle of it. LOL I used Prismacolor Premier FIne Marker to write the simple "i love you". Super easy card, obviously, but I really like it.

The inspiration for this card came from a site called Uncommon Goods, and I selected this piece of art as my inspiration.

Thanks for stopping by.

It's Sunday Scrap Day #4 - Sort of

It's Sunday Scrap Day at Always With Heart. Though not an official blog challenge, Jules invites everyone to play along. The goal is to make a card using only scraps. Unfortunately my card doesn't qualify tonight because I stamped out the images. Stamped sentiments and piecing are allowed, but no other stamping. Still I did manage to use only scraps and set a goal to make the card as quickly as possible; this little guy took only 15 minutes. In fact it took me longer to set up the picture, pull it into photoshop, crop it, and tag it than it did to make it. I will admit, the polka dot background was already in the scrap pile as is, so I didn't have to pull out the Big Shot. I also had extra incentive to pull this together quickly because it was already 8:15 when remembered I needed a thank you card for a friend that took me to dinner last night.

I hopped over to SCS and looked around the Featured Stamper gallery and decided to case this lovely card by Tillymint. Congrats to Tilly for being chosen as this weeks Featured Stamper.

Well it's getting late and the last of my laundry is calling out to me. Thank you for dropping by.


Supplies:
Stamps: SU - Sweet Summer and unknown "thank you" (it was sitting on the counter and I'm sure I'll find where it belongs someday)
Ink: Basic Black and Green Galore
Card Stock: SU! Whisper White and Gable Green
Extras: Buttons - SU!; Ribbon scraps unknown; DMC thread; Cuttlebug embossing folder

Hugs and Kisses for Sunday Scrap Day

There is a very lovely lady here in blogland named Jules that has set up a self-challenge to tap into her scrap bin each Sunday. Although not an official challenge she invites anyone to join her in the quest to reduce the scrap bin here at Always With Heart. Even if you do not wish to play along, I highly encourage you to take a look at her blog; she has many beautiful cards to see.

Todays Sunday Scrap Day card is once again two challenges. SSD3 and Splitcoast Stampers Clean and Simple challenge (#102). Last Monday's CAS challenge was a sketch challenge.

This card was really fun to make and I am so please at how it turned out. The ribbon presented the biggest challenge; the bow is not tied because it is three pieces of ribbon stitched together. That is the reason the tail of the ribbon is so short. The ribbon that is wrapped around the card front is actually two pieces with the seam under the bow. Unless someone actually takes the card apart, they will never know that is not a whole ribbon. :)

I used SU! Pretty In Pink and Crumb Cake card stock ... all scraps. I ran the second layer of the Crumb Cake through Cuttlebug's Diamond embossing folder. I then took Ranger Dabber paint (pink) and ran a paint brush along the bottom edges of each diamond. Once it dried, I used a sanding block and ran it over the raised diamonds, removing most of the paint and giving the edges a softer feel. I mirrored the diamond shapes with the Pretty In Pink using a Spellbinders die. The "Hugs & Kisses" is also an old scrap; it's a K&Company clipboard that is at least 3 0r 4 years old. The bit of lace started out as white, but I pressed it into a Distressed Ink pad (Tea Dyed), then ran it under water to even it out and give it a worn feel. Once dried, I attached it to the back side of the clipboard. I added Kaiser Craft pearls (love KC pearls) popped on a Prima rose and called it done.

Thank you for stopping by.

Mojo Triple Play

It's been several weeks since I've been able to do any crafting or other fun things. On December 29th, I took a pretty bad fall and unfortunately it messed up my knees enough to keep me down for a few weeks. My hands and wrists weren't doing so well either for at least a week after the fall. Luckily I hit my head on the dirt so no issues there. I had to keep my right knee up and iced for two weeks and then of course closing the year end books at work kept me away from crafts until this weekend.

So here are three Mojo Monday Sketches (two of which I started when they appeared but didn't get a chance to finish) including todays sketch.

Thank you for popping in.

MOJO MONDAY 174:




I've been holding this stamp and paper aside for some weeks now waiting for the perfect sketch, and I think 174 is it.
Stamp by Inkadinkado; Paper by Basic Grey; Buttons by SU and Basic Grey; Ribbon unknown.


MOJO MONDAY 172 and Always With Heart - Sunday Scraps:




I really love how this one came out. This is a double challenge; Mojo Monday and Jules' Sunday Scraps (I would link, but for the life of me I can not figure out how to make them work).

Jules has set a challenge goal to use her stack of scraps every Sunday. Like Jules, I have bags and bags of scrap DP, CS, ribbon; even half stamped/colored items. The goal is to not cut into anything new or whole, but to use only the scraps. The Mojo Monday 172 sketch is just perfect for using up scraps. In the case of this card, there is a huge ink blob on the blue card stock under the circle and square. I also only had enough ribbon to make a quick fold under. That ribbon doesn't even go all the way under the circle. :) I was able to get just enough Dasher paper together to pull this off, and my Old Olive card stock is more scraps than whole sheets so that wasn't an issue. This was just so much fun to make this card happen.

Stamps - Verve Kind Words; DP by Basic Grey (Dasher); bling by Kaiser Craft; card stock SU and Bazzil; Ribbon unknown.



MOJO MONDAY 171:






UGH!! The center panel is on there crooked and I didn't even notice until after I took the picture. Oh well. I like how this one turned out. The Mambo Melon trim looks really bright in the photo, but It blends beautifully IRL. I used a lot of different products to make this one come together.
Stamps - Verve Beautiful Kindness and SU!s Aviary; Basic Grey Paper and brad; SU Chocolate Chip and Mambo Melon card stock and Chocolate chip craft ink; SU! Mambo Melon ribbon.