Sending Sunshine

My friend who got me started in this stamping world (and then moved away leaving me with no one to stamp with), called this morning. She's away from all of her stamping stuff, and has been for too long, while her husband is doing military training. It's pouring buckets where she's at, and the kids are cooped up inside, and she can't even spend the day stamping. So she asked what I'd be making today and I told her I'd make a card for her. Well, this is my second one. The first one turned out awful! I was trying to do it for a color challenge, and it looked really blah, and then I smudged ink all over at the very end. I emailed it to her, for a good laugh, but there was no way I was posting it here! I "cased" this fun card from Split Coast Stampers. My friend loves Little Pieces, and the first time I saw that card, I knew I'd have to do something similar with it. It's almost Friday....woo-hoo!

Stamps: SU Little Pieces, Unknown
Ink: PTI Berry Sorbet, PTI Hibiscus Burst, PTI Ocean Tides, PTI Plum Pudding, PTI Ripe Avocado, SU Rose Red
Cardstock: PTI Berry Sorbet, PTI White
Accessories: 1/2 inch circle punch

Are you ready for a contest?

That's right a contest! Michelle is preparing for the Digiments store to open May 13th. To celebrate she's having a contest. Each and every one of you can play along. You can go the Digiments blog and have access to the free digiment I used on my card. Then make your own card and enter to win the entire set of new release digiments. If the size I used above doesn't seem to suit a project you'd want to make, don't worry! You can print off your digiment larger or smaller; that is one of the features that make digiments perfect for any project!

Digiment: May Release
Cardstock: PTI Vintage Cream, SU Kraft
DP: K & Company
Accessories: Making Memories ribbon

Sympathy Cards

Here are a few more sympathy cards I made. My mom is very thoughtful of her friends and family, and always sends out sympathy cards when they are needed. So I'm trying to get a stash built up for her before she needs them. I tried a few different colors just so I didn't get bored with making the same card over and over. I don't know if anyone else is like that, but sometimes making multiple cards for me feels kind of boring. So that's why I tried the red color combo this time, but I'm hoping it doesn't look too Christmassy with the red and green. Baseball practice starts today, so of course the clouds are rolling in! I'm hoping the rain will stay away, or I know of one sad little boy who will mope around our house the whole night.

Stamps: SU Artfull Asian, River City Rubber Works
Ink: PTI Dark Chocolate, PTI Pure Poppy, Copics: RV13, RV29, V12, YG95
Cardstock: PTI Dark Chocolate, PTI Ripe Avocado, PTI Vintage Cream, SU Kraft
Accessories: Glitter Glue

Monday, Monday

Time flies and it's Monday again! Here is a card I made using Jen's Sketches For You To Try. I also combined the sketch with the Saturday inspiration challenge on Split Coast Stampers, which was to get your inspiration from Faviana prom dresses. The link to the dress I used for inspiration can be found here. I loved the colors in the dress, and put my card together from there. I'm quite happy with how this one turned out. My husband even said, "Wow, looks nice!" when I showed it to him. Usually it's just, "looks nice." So that extra "wow" made me happy.

Stamps: SU Summer By The Sea, SU Pretty Petals
Ink: Colorbox Cocoa, PTI Dark Chocolate, VersaMark, Copics
Cardstock: PTI Berry Sorbet, PTI Ripe Avocado, PTI Summer Sunrise
Accessories: Offray Ribbon, Ranger Clear Embossing Powder

Logo Challenge

This is the card I made for a challenge issued by Molly from the Paper Dolls Blogger Group. The challenge was to find a logo and use that as inspiration for a card. I spent a lot of time thinking about what to do. I wanted to do Bengals something just because football logos are cool, and the Bengals are my team! But it's very tricky finding a good Bengals orange. So I just kept pondering it. My little girl was talking with me about her stuffed animals and informed me that "Pink Tails" was sick and needed to go to the doctor. She has a name for each stuffed animal, it's very cute. Then she asked me when we're going to go to that place where she can make her own stuffed animal. And it hit me: Build-A-Bear. I found this darling logo and it's what I used for my inspiration. Since I'm still needing baby cards I decided to go with a baby theme. The yellow looks pretty good on the card, but right next to the logo it looks a little washed out. That yellow on the logo is pretty vibrant! And Susan, you'll be happy to know after you sent me that cardstock, I decided having red was indeed a necessity, so I got some red ink and I'll be getting cardstock soon!

Stamps: Inkadinkado Baby Boy, Rubber Stampede Bear, Unity Distressed Dots
Ink: PTI Dark Chocolate, PTI Pure Poppy, Copics
Cardstock: PTI Lemon Tart, PTI Vitage Cream, SU Real Red (thanks Susan!), SU Kraft
Accessories: Offray Ribbon, Random Buttons

Oh, Happy Day!

Well, I got a very pleasant surprise yesterday. Michelle from Digiments sent an email letting me know she'd selected me to be a part of her first design team. I just have to say that I couldn't stop smiling all day! Her new digital sentiment stamp store will be opening towards the middle of this month. That's when you'll get to see some fun projects created by the design team. While you wait for the store to officially open, be sure to check out the other design team members and the great work that they share! Their links are on my left hand side bar. Thanks to Michelle for considering me for this position; I'm excited to have this opportunity!

Spring Fling Challenge

The Papertrey girls are celebrating spring, and a challenge has been issued! Some of their designers were to seek inspiration from a photograph and make a card or other project with it. The challenge then for us, is to use an element from one of the designer's inspiration pieces and make our own project. I used Lisa Johnson's inspiration photo as my starting point. It was such a beautiful field of flowers, and I thought, "Even the picture would have made a beautiful card!" Then I remembered that recently my friend Susan used photos as the focal point of some beautiful cards. Well, yesterday when I was walking to the bus stop to pick up my son from school, this beauitful tree was blooming, it was sunny, and gorgeous...you know I love pink!!! I took a few pictures, and that's what I decided to use as the focal point of my card. So, I'd say the elements that I used were the beauty found in nature, and the gorgeous hibiscus color that Papertrey has now! Head on over and check out the beautiful inspiration pieces and what the designers came up with, too.

Stamps: PTI Life
Ink: PTI Hibiscus Burst
Cardstock: PTI White, SU Rose Red
Accessories: PTI Hibiscus Burst Buttons (for the photo; I'd planned on using some on the card, but I liked the layout better without them)

Happiness Is A Habit

I have enjoyed the Clean & Simple Stamping blog a lot, and found a great layout here that I used as the basis for these 2 cards. I've been meaning to use Hibiscus Burst together with my Dark Chocolate, and this layout just seemed perfect for it. I'm not totally sure about the cream ribbon on the sympathy card. I wanted to try it, even though it just kind of blends in. It is a sympathy card so I'm not going for "WOW!" But I don't know if it's just too blended in. Any opinions? And the happiness card just made me laugh! Are you ever just working along, and something comes to you that you haven't thought of in forever!?!? Well, as soon as I stamped the "happiness" I could hear my mom's voice from childhood. She had a little saying, "Happiness is a habit!" And I haven't thought of that in ages, and it made me laugh out loud!

Stamps: SU Botanical Blooms, SU Warm Words, River City Rubber Works
Ink: PTI Dark Chocolate, PTI Hibiscus Burst
Cardstock: PTI Dark Chocolate, PTI Vintage Cream
Accessories: PTI Hibiscus Burst Ribbon, Offray Ribbon

Digiments Card

Here is the card I made using a new "Digiment" from Michelle. She's opening a Digital Stamp store where she will be focusing on sentiments. Digital, sentiments....digiments!!! I thought that was very clever. She's looking for a design team to highlight her products. I haven't tried out for any design teams of any sorts, and decided to give it a shot. A really neat thing about digital stamps, is that you have the ability to resize the image you are using. I know there have been times I've been using a stamp and thought, "Oh, if this was just a little smaller, it would fit perfectly." Or, "I just want this sentiment a little bigger to fill up a little more space." There's my plug, Michelle ;) I like the way that this card turned out, and it will be fun (design team or not) to see what Michelle comes up with in the future.

Stamps: Digiment!
Ink: Colorbox Heliotrope for edging
Cardstock: PTI Plum Pudding, PTI Vintage Cream, SU Kraft
DP: Paper Pizazz
Accessories: Labels One Nestabilites, Martha Stewart Classic Butterfly Punch, Offray Petite Gems

Polka Dots

Well, as you can probably tell from my last few posts, with my last PaperTrey order, I finally got some polka dot accessories! I decided to do some more "clean and simple" cards with my Upsy Daisy set. I just changed up the colors, sentiments, and added some polka dot ribbon this time. This set is perfect for doing quick cards with, because it's just one big image.
Tomorrow, grades should be posted, so I find out what kind of goody I get to buy. I like to reward myself for good grades with stamping purchases! A "B" will earn me a new stamp set, and an "A" just may get me a new set of Nesties!!!

Stamps: SU Upsy Daisy, River City Rubber Works Sentiments
Ink: PTI Berry Sorbet, PTI Ocean Tides
Cardstock: PTI Berry Sorbet, PTI Ocean Tides
Accessoreis: PTI Berry Sorbet Swiss Dot Ribbon, PTI Ocean Tides Swiss Dot Ribbon

Mojo Monday

It's been a few weeks since I played along with any of the Mojo Monday sketches, and today was the perfect day to participate again. I thought this sketch was really fun to use. I've been trying to build my stash of baby cards because I have so many family and friends due in the upcoming months. So here is another one, made with someone specific in mind, whose belly is about to burst ;)

Stamps: TAC Hello Baby, Fiskars The Stork Has Arrived
Ink: PTI Dark Chocolate, PTI Ocean Tides, Copics: BG11, E43, RV13, Y11, YG95
Cardstock: PTI Aqua Mist, PTI Ocean Tides
DP: PTI Polka Dot Parade
Accessories: PTI Aqua Mist Buttons, Offray Ribbon, Scallop Circle Punch, Unknown Eyelet

3 out of 3!

I found this awesome stamp the other day and had to get it. My husband, my dad, and my father-in-law are all not only great dads, but they are the kind of dads that really can fix anything. I'd say 3 out of 3 is pretty good when it comes to something like this. So this is what I'll be using for Father's Day "cards" to go with whatever tool they get this year ;) The size is smaller than a regular card (3 1/2 x 5), simply because it looked better to me this way. I also tried using Sara's Creative Adventures Color Challenge for this card. I say tried because I always seem to be missing some element. I don't have New Leaf. I have Ripe Avocado, and have loved it so much that when New Leaf came out, I really didn't even care to get it. So I replaced the new leaf with Ripe Avocado. And on the patterned paper I used, I noticed that Ocean Tides is also on there. So I left out and added a color. But still, her color challenge was what inspired me to use these colors!

Stamp: Inkadinkado
Ink: PTI Ripe Avocado
Cardstock: PTI Ripe Avocado, PTI Smokey Shadow
DP: PTI Polka Dot Parade
Accessories: SU Spiral Punch

Nice People

I have "met" some really nice people through stamping forums, blogs, etc. It's really fun how even across the miles and for people that will likely never meet in real life, people say such nice things and do kind things for each other. A friend from Split Coast Stampers sent me this cute fairy image, and I finally colored her in. The whole time I was coloring her I was thinking about a book that I just love: Fablehaven (If you've read it I think you'll see the connection. If you haven't read it, I recommend it!). I love to read and could spend hours out of the day wrapped up in a good book. I try to avoid reading "for fun" during the semester because I know I won't get anything productive done. But now that I'm finished with school for the summer, I'm ready to catch up on some reading. So if I go MIA for a few days, I may just be doing a little reading.

Inspired By JC Penney Bedding

I love participating in the new Clean and Simple Challenges at Split Coast Stampers. They are posted on Mondays, and yesterday I was gone most of the day doing schoolwork so didn't have a chance to even see what it was. This morning when I saw my friend Susan's card that she made for the challenge I thought it was terrific. It turns out the challenge is to use bedding from JC Penney for your inspiration. So I went to check out the bedding. This is the inspiration piece I used. I thought that quilt was so cute, and I don't think I did it any justice with this card. Nor do I think that this card is what I would consider CAS. I used a lot of stamp sets which is not something I usually do for a CAS card, it ended up taking forever, and I even got out my embossing tools. I loved looking at the bedding for inspiration anyway, and I'm hoping to make another card later that fits more into what I'd call the "Clean and Simple" category.

Stamps: SU Time Well Spent, SU Little Flowers, Mindy's Zoo, Verve Petals and Stems
Ink: PTI Hibiscu Burst, PTI Ripe Avocado, VersaMark
Cardstock: PTI Spring Moss
DP: Debbie Mumm
Accessories: Ranger Clear Embossing Powder

Happy Birthday, Using Happy Harmony

I love the flowers from the old Stampin' Up set called Happy Harmony. I decided to use them for a birthday card, and really like the way that they look paired with this sentiment. I wanted to get some green on this card, in addition to just the flower stems. I didn't really want a layer of cardstock, though, so I went for adding a little ribbon to a few of the corners.
We've had sunshine here for 2 days in a row now! I'm hoping that the spring snowstorms are finally gone. Now if my son's lingering cough would go away, too. Enjoy your Sunday.

Stamps: SU Happy Harmony, River City Rubber Works
Ink: PTI Plum Pudding, SU Old Olive
Cardstock: PTI Plum Pudding
Accessories: Offray Ribbon