ColourQ #38

Hi Stamping Friends!

So glad you stopped by today!  We have another fabulous color challenge from Arielle over at the ColourQ color challenge blog.  I'm keeping this post short and simple, kinda like my card today.

FOREST FRIENDS

Nothing fancy, just plain old-fashioned stamping.  :)  I hope you have a chance to play along with us this week.  These are such fun colors to use and they would make adorable kids cards or bright, cheerful summery cards.  The sky's the limit!  Be sure to visit the other gals on the Royal Court.  The are so talented, I know you won't be dissapointed!

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Stamping!

Stampin' Celebration Inspiration Challenge #7

Hi Stamping Friends!

It's time to celebrate all the men in our lives with the inspiration challenge over at the Stampin' Celebration blog.  We hope you will play along with us this week!

ColourQ #37

Hi Stamping Friends!

Tuesday means it's time for another color challenge over at the ColourQ blog.  And of course Arielle did not disappoint us in finding something fun!  This felt flower scrapbook cover is super adorable, so I went with a literal copy of it.  I used the sketch challenge over at the Clean and Simple blog.  This sketch is not their newest sketch.  But it worked so well for this card, that I used it anyway.

PETAL PIZZAZZ

If I only had time for some stitching, it qould be perfect!  I hope you have a chance to play along with us this week.  Be sure to drop by the rest of the Royal Court and see what the other gals have created.

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Stamping!

Stampin' Addicts Last Chance MEGA Blog Hop!!

Hi Stampin' Friends!

I'm so excited to be a part of the Stampin' Addicts Last Chance MEGA Blog Hop!!  The festivities kick-off today though Sunday.  If you've been hopping from the beginning, then you just came from Joyce's wonderful blog, Stampin' Central.  If you are just joining us, that's fabulous!  Just start here and hop on through to the end.  If you somehow got lost along the way, just click HERE and there is a list of the blog hop sites in order. 

The Last Chance stamp set I chose to feature is GOOD FRIEND.  I've always adored the little bird and the fun flowers in this set. I never did use it enough.  This is a great scrapbooking set, because the images are nice and bold.

The color combo comes from the Pals Paper Arts blog.  They are Bermuda Bay, Crushed Curry, and Soft Suede.  Perfect for a bird card!  With the idea of little birdies flying through my mind, I just had to make a milk carton bird house.

These are so cute and so easy to make!  I {heart} all the Stampin' Up! Big Shot stuff.  The Big Shot is my favorite crafting tool.  To complete my three projects, I created another card.  This one uses some of the fun flowers that are in the GOOD FRIEND set.

This sketch challenge comes from the Sketch Girl blog.  The color combo comes from the Sketch 'n' Color challenge blog.  It's all written in German, so I had to guess at the actually colors.  :)  I used Kraft, Soft Suede, Melon Mambo, and Pumpkin Pie.  I hope I was close!

Well that's it until next time.  Thanks so much for hopping by!  To continue on this amazing MEGA hop, go visit the fabulous Heidi at Running With Scissors.  I'm sure you'll be glad you did.  She is going to treat you to some wonderful projects using the Game Night stamp set.

---GO TO NEXT BLOG---

Remember to visit Stampin' Addicts and join our Stampin' Up! lovin' community.  It's FREE to join!  And it's open to customers and demonstrators alike.  While you are there, be sure to check out the awesome gallery that is organized alphabetically by stamp set.  Stay awhile and upload some of your own creations.  We would love to see what you have been creating!

Thanks for hopping by!

Happy Stamping!

Stampin' Celebration Inspiration Challenge #6

Hi Stamping Friends!

It's time for another Stampin' Celebration Inspiration Challenge!!  And this week we are celebrating babies.  Girl babies in fact.  There is a cute story behind this inspiration.  Candace, who helps me plan challenges for the Stampin' Celebration blog was due to have a baby girl this week.  Ends up, three weeks ago she gave birth to a baby BOY!!  Little Adam was quite the surprise.  But both mom and baby are doing fine.  And since this inspiration challenge was planned way back in April, we just left well enough alone.  Here's what I created:

 

PETAL PIZZAZZ

For this card I used the sketch challenge over at the Mojo Monday blog.  The first Monday of the month is their contest challenge and they have a TON of entries.  I've never had the priviledge of winning any Mojo Monday challenge.  It is on my things to accomplish someday.  But I'll tell, the competion is fierce over there!  They always have such amazing entries.  This card uses the stamp set Petal Pizzazz and some retired rub-ons.  The colors are Kiwi Kiss, Pretty In Pink, Cameo Coral and the retired Raspberry Tart DSP, which was one of my all-time favorite DSPs.  I just adore this color combo.  I also made a little baby shower party favor.  What's a celebration without a treat!!

NURSERY NECESSITIES

This little treat holder was made using the Two Tags die.  The sentiment comes from the Nursery Necessities stamp set.  This set is going to retire, I'm sad to say.  I really like the images in this set, because they are not your typical "baby" images.  If you don't have this set yet, order it before June 30th!!  The fun flower was made using six Scallop Circles punched from Cameo Coral cardstock, also set to retire.  I wet the scallops (just under my kitchen sink faucet!) and then scrunched them all up, layered them on top of each other and fastened them together with a brad.  Then I fluffed them up.  Super easy and oh so fun!!

I hope you can play along with us this week at the Stampin' Celebration Inspiration Challenge.  Be sure to check out the other fabulous creations by our super talented design team:

ROCHELLE

ALLISON

KARI

Also, make sure you stop back tomorrow when I will be participating in the Stampin' Addicts Retiring SU! Mega Blog Hop.  Stampin' Addicts blog hops are the best!  I promise you won't be disappointed.

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Stamping!

ColourQ #36

Hi Stamping Friends!

Just a quick post today.  I've got lots of stuff on my to-do list.  Don't we all?!  Arielle found another fabulous color combo for us to play with this week.  I hope you will join the challenge over at the COLOURQ.  I combined the color challenge with the sketch challenge over at Taylored Expressions.  However, I did notice that I forgot a layer of the sketch.  Too late to change it now!

ELEMENTS OF STYLE

I forgot the extra layer of paper that should be under the flowers.  What a bummer!  I still like how this card turned out.  Not my typical style.  I really think you cannot make an ugly card when you use Elements Of Style.  It is such a gorgeous stamp set.

I hope you will join us this week at the COLOURQ.  It's always fun to do something "out-of-the-box". 

Stop back by on Thursday, when I will show off our next Stampin' Celebration Inspiration Challenge.  Then on Friday I will be particpating in the Stampin' Addicts (my FAVE SU! online hangout!) blog hop featuring retiring sets from the SU! catalog.

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Stamping!

Stampin' Celebration Inspiration Challenge #5

Hi Stamping Friends!

This week's celebration over at the Stampin' Celebration Inspiration Challenge blog is all about graduations!  I've already been to four graduation parties, but I know that our local public high schools are having their graduations next week.  And there are still a few college kids that are wrapping up their finals this week too.

Our 14 yo DS, who has been homeschooled since the 2nd grade, "graduated" from 8th grade.  We had a special celebration to honor his accomplishment.  We've also decided to let him attend one of the local high schools this fall (he's fallen in LOVE with water polo!).  So this is a HUGE "growing-up" step for him and our family.  What a fabulous reason to celebrate!

The images in the inspiration photos come from the Martha Stewart magazine website.  Leave it to Martha and her team to have everything matchy-matchy.  Even the chairs!  I love the turquoise, brown and white colors, so that is were my inspiration began.  I also loved the banner idea, but two of the SCIC Design Team members used that idea, and they did it so well, that I knew I couldn't improve on their fabulousness.  So I went with Plan B.  And here it is:

GO, GRADUATE

I used the Go, Graduate set from the Summer Mini Catalog.  I just adore that little owl.  He always makes me smile.  The sketch comes from 2 Sketches 4 You.  I really needed a super quick card, since I was so late in getting ready for this challenge.  I was still stamping this card at midnight last night.  Bad, bad design team member!!  And I'm supposed to be the gal in charge!  No real excuse except I haven't been feeling to stampy lately.  Have you ever been in one of those slumps?  Anyhoo!  Back to the card!  I used Soft Suede, Bermuda Bay, and Whisper White.  With a few Black embellishments.  I also made this cute little party favor:

PERFECT SETTING

YUM-O!  I cut out the cupcake wrapper with the Perfect Setting XL die.  Then I used some Hemp Twine to fancy it up a bit.  I even made the cupcake itself.  I don't love baking, but my 11yo DD likes to play in the kitchen, and I do think it is my momly duty to show her the ropes.  These are actually brownie cupcakes.  I used the cake-style recipe on the brownie box.  I also added smashed up Oreos to the batter before I poured them in the cups.  I did make my own frosting: 1/3 cup of butter, 3 cups of powdered sugar, 2 tablespoons of milk.  Nothing like a sugar rush!  I then added more crushed up Oreos on top for decoration.  Super easy!

I hope you have a chance to play along with us this week at the SCIC.  Hop on over there and check out what the other amazingly talented Design Team members created... in plenty of time for the challenge!  :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Stamping!

ColourQ #35

Hi Stamping Friends!

Better late than never!  We went to a BBQ yesterday afternoon at our good friends' beautiful home and by the time we got back, I didn't feel like getting my blog post together.  So this morning it is!  Arielle gave us some fun, bright summery colors to play with this week at the COLOURQ.  She also has a fun twist to this week's challenge.  She joined up with Mercy Kerin from Lord Have Mercy to combine their weekly challenges.  Mercy always has the best sketch challenges and this week is no different!  It was kind of exciting to get her sketch challenge early.

GOOD FRIEND

If you squint real hard or use your imagination, pretend that dingy greenish gray background on my card is a nice bright brilliant white.  Then it might not look so horrible!  Yet again, bad photography skills have ruined the look of this cute card.  Sigh!  What's a girl in a hurry supposed to do?

I decided to flip the sketch on its side.  I used the set Good Friend (which I just found out this morning will be retired from the SU! catalog!!).  It's such a cheerful little set.  I thought it would be perfect for these colors.  I still have scraps of Tangerine Tango DSP laying around, so I used one of those.  I think this piece was from the Hawaiian Papaya pack.  It was one of my faves.  I'm happy that Tangerine Tango is replacing Only Orange.  I think it's a great addition to our Core Colors.

Be sure to check out the other Royal Court DT members fabulous creations.  And I hope you'll be able to play along with us this week at the ColourQ!  If you are looking for more stamping challenges, be sure to stop by Thursday and see what I've created for the Stampin' Celebration Inspiration Challenge.

Good Friend   #113740   $28.95

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Stamping!

Stampin' Celebration Inspiration Challenge #4

Hi Stamping Friends!

Welcome to the fourth week of the Stampin' Celebration Inspiration Challenge!  This week we are celebrating Memorial Day, the holiday that kicks off the summer season here in the U.S.  Do you know the origins of Memorial Day?  It originally was called Decoration Day and is a day of remembrance for those who have died in our nation's service.  You can find out more by checking out this blog: Memorial Day History.  Memorial Day always reminds me of my maternal grandma.  Every Memorial Day we would go to her house, pick some Sweet Peas that would be blooming in her backyard, then take her and my grandpa and go place the flowers on the grave of my uncle (their son) that was killed in the Korean Warwhen he was only 19 years old.  What a beautiful memory.  I wish I lived close enough to place flowers on their graves this Memorial Day.  This inspiration photo also reminds me of my grandma, because she always made homemade pies every Saturday.  YUM!!  I had a lot of fun with this Stampin' Celebration Inspiration pic.

COMPLIMENTS TO THE CHEF

I really liked the letterpress "Good Grub" invite.  I tried to mimic that with this invitation.  I used the sketch over at the Mojo Monday blog.  This is sketch #140.  The little pop of yellow also caught my eye.  Lots of fun colors in this inspiration piece.  I chose to use Kraft, Riding Hood Red, Chocolate Chip, and Summer Sun.  So glad that Riding Hood Red is coming back as a core color.  I love that shade of red.

TART AND TANGY

I thought it would be fun to create a little gift bag for all your BBQ/picnic guests.  A brown paper lunch sack makes a great "countrified" bag.  Fill with fresh cherries, popcorn, anything for your guests to remember your gathering long after they have gone home.

PILLOW BOX

Another item every BBQ/picnic needs is utensils.  This holder was made using the Pillow Box die.  I just cut the top off of one end, wrapped my utensils in a napkin and placed them inside, all nice and cozy like.  I like this combo of Kraft, Riding Hood Red, and Summer Sun.  Kind of looks like a bun with ketchup and mustard on it!

Make sure to check out the other Design Team members fabulous creations.  You can find links to their blogs by going to the Stampin' Celebration blog.  I hope you can play along with us this week.  Remember to enjoy all of life's celebrations!

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Stamping!

ColourQ #34

Hi Stamping Friends!

Arielle's fabulous color challenge at the COLOURQ blog came at just the perfect moment.  I needed to make a "welcome baby" card for a family in our church, and these colors are so adorable for a little boy. 

ANIMAL STORIES

I got the Animal Stories set free during SAB and this is the first time I've inked it up.  With my luck it will probably retire and this will be the only time it sees ink from me!  This fun sketch came from the UNSCRIPTED SKETCHES blog.  This is sketch #56.  I flipped it on it's side.  These animals fit perfectly inside the little boxes.  I hope you can play along with us at the ColourQ this week!  Be sure to check out the other fabulous creations from the ColourQ Royal Court (aka the desgin team!)

Sorry you haven't seen my around blogland lately.  Summer is right around the corner and one thing that I love to do in the summer is READ... ALOT!!  I'm just as addicted to reading as I am to stamping!  I started a little early this year.  I just finished a book by Michael Landon Jr. called "The Silent Gift".  It was fabulous!  I'm just super happy that our church has a library, so I don't have to buy books, I just check one (or two or three!) out every Sunday.  You probably won't be seeing every day.  But I will check in every few days and still have some stamping goodness to share with you.  And I'll also keep you updated on other great books I find.  And if you have any suggestions for a great summer read, let me know!

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Stamping!

Stampin' Celebration Inspiration Challenge #3

Hi Stamping Friends!

It's already our third week at the STAMPIN CELEBRATION Inspiration Challenge blog.  And this week we have a beautiful wedding ensemble that Candace picked out.  We hope you an play along with us!  I love the purples and yellows in these pictures.

TEENY TINY WISHES

I chose to use the sketch challenge from the Clean and Simple blog.  This is FTL90.  You know me!  I had to go with a literal interpratation of the inspiration challenge and the sketch.  It was really difficult to position all those flowers so the didn't look like they were all lined up in a row.  That little swirly effect is hard to acheive.  This card isn't all that clean and simple.  Leave it to me to turn a CAS card into messy and complicated!  I also made this...

I think a wrapped candle like this would make a lovely wedding favor.  Maybe add a tag with the couples monogram on it.  Or maybe a little Thank You sentiment.  The color is a little off in the card pic, but I used Elegant Eggplant and So Saffron for both projects.  The EE cardstock is embossed with the Finial Press Textured Impressions Folder.  The SS flowers are made by using the Floral Fusion Sizzlet.  The ribbon is Whisper White Organza Ribbon.  I really like the look of this ribbon and it is very easy to tie.  I wish it came in more colors.  I sponged the edges of all the flowers with So Saffron ink.  It's amazing how much more depth a little sponging will do.  I should use this technique more often.

If you want to see more Stampin' Celebration Inspiration goodness, check out the other Design Team members.  They really amaze me every week with their fabulous projects.

ALLISON

CANDACE

KARI

ROCHELLE

I have my Stampin' Up! club ladies coming over tommorow night, so I'll try and post the projects we made.  I haven't had a ton of stamping time this week, and I won't this weekend either.  Our oldest DS is graduating from 8th grade and we are giving him a little celebration party.  Now I just need to come up with some creative centerpieces.  Any ideas?  :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Stamping!

ColourQ 33

Hi Stamping Friends!

Another fabulous Tuesday and another fabulous color "cue" from Arielle over at the COLOURQ blog. I LOVE these colors!  I also would haved loved to make tons of cards using these colors, unfortunatley I've been too unispired to stamp much lately.  As some might say, "My mojo has left the building."!  As it is, I made this simple card in about 15 minutes and posted it way late to Arielle.  I didn't make our Royal Court "deadline", but she's so sweet, she let me post it anyway.

FOREST FRIENDS

This sketch comes from the GET SKETCHY blog.  The owl image comes from the Forest Friends set. And don't you think the sentiment is perfect for my "late" card?!  It comes from A Little Birthday Cheer set.

For more wonderful creations using these colors, check out the other DT members blogs.  You can click on the links on my sidebar.  Stop back by on Thursday and see what I've made for the Stampin' Celebration challenge.

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Stamping!

X-Treme Skater

Hi Stamping Friends!

I wanted to play in the color challenge at Stacey's Stamping Stage.  I was undecided about what direction to go, so I showed the challenge colors to my two oldest kids and asked them what stamp image tehy thought of when they saw these colors.  My almost (on Sunday!) 14yo DS said "skater".  So I pulled out my Extreme Skateboard stamp and my favorite boy stamp, Extreme Elements, and made this...

EXTREME SKATEBOARD

I used Stacey's ACT 29 Curtain Call Color Challenge and the sketch from the Eat, Sleep, Stamp Sketchy Thursday Challenge ESS83. 

The card base is Tangerine Tango, layered with Bordering Blue that was stamped with the Sanded BG stamp using Basic Gray ink.  The DSP is from the Sweet Pea Pack that was in the Occasions mini catalog.  If you buy the Extreme Elements set during the month of May, you get to choose one of our Designer Brads for FREE!  Contact me if you are looking for a Stampin' Up! demonstrator.  I would love to help you out!

That's it for me today!  I'm heading to Senior Day at the Park, hosted by the Center on Aging.  I'm supposed to do a 45 minute scrapbook demonstration.  And I have NO idea what I'm going to say! 

EXTREME ELEMENTS   #115181   $26.95

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Stamping!