Bursting Blooms (Card Patterns #125, ColourQ #95)

I hope you all are having a wonderful week so far, I am!  My niece was born yesterday!!  Caylee Leigh weighed 7lbs. 2 oz. and was 18 1/2 inches long.  She's super mellow and such a cutie pie! Caylee is my second niece, but the first grandchild for my mom and she's over the moon.  My brother and his girlfriend are the proud parents.  I'll show you pictures sometime soon, I promise.  Now for the card...

I used PTI's background basics: text style stamp for the background and an old A Muse Artstamps stamp, bursting blooms, for the main image.  I inked the blooms with A|S bermuda ink and then "rolled" the outside of the blooms with Clearsnap turquoise pigment ink.  The stems are inked with Clearsnap lime pastel chalk ink.  The ribbon is from American Crafts and the cardstock from PTI.  I had never tried to stamp an image right over a background before and I really liked the way this turned out.  I also had always wanted to try the "rolling" technique I explained before.  I think I used too  much turquoise ink on the right bloom because you can't really see the lighter bermuda ink in the middle.  Oh well, practice makes perfect.

My card is based on this week's sketch from Card Patterns.  I stayed pretty true to the sketch this week.  Instead of making scallops with cardstock and a punch I used the scalloped ribbon to represent the scallops.  I then tied the white satin ribbon below to represent the ribbon in the sketch.  I made my image panel larger than the sketch in order to accomodate the blooms and background text, but I think it still looks almost identical to the original sketch.

The colors for my card were inspired by this week's color story from ColourQ.  I really enjoyed this week's colors.  They are pretty and seem to go together really well.  They were also fairly easy to work with, which was really nice.  I felt like they made my ideas just flow, which doesn't always happen.  What do you think of the colors?  There is plenty of time for you to play if you like what you see.  I hope you liked my card.  Have a great rest of your week!  Happy Crafting! :)

Happy 50th! (ColourQ #92, CASFTL #148)

I hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July!  I know it's been a little while since I've posted, we've been busy shopping for a mattress.  We could not seem to agree on one because I sleep on my side and my hubby is an all over sleeper, meaning he tosses and turns all night long.  We currently have a pillowtop and we both hate it.  Every mattress I liked he thought was too soft and hated and every one he liked I thought was too firm and I hated.  I found out that I couldn't get a spring mattress because I've been having hip issues, but he didn't like the feel of memory foam and I wasn't crazy about latex.  We had laid on about 30 mattresses and I was about to give up when we finally laid on one and both said at the same time, "I think I like this".  It was a miracle at this point.  Now the only thing in our way was the price.  It was almost double our budget!  We slept on it, not literally, and realized that there was no price too high to pay for a good night sleep so we took the plunge.  Our Simmons ComforPedic will be here in 4-6 weeks and we couldn't be more excited!  I just had to share what has been occupying my life for the past 2 weeks, and if you're still here we'll get on with the card....

I made this card for a friend of ours that's turning 50 today.  Happy birthday John!  The patterned paper is from the Lime Twist collection by My Mind's Eye.  I am in love with this collection!  It has become my go to patterned paper.  It's what I turn to first to choose paper.  I think I've said this before, but the last few collections by MME have been so great and have made me a true fan!  The bingo card is from Jenni Bowlin's calendar bingo cards.  I am loving them for bday cards!  The "happy" is from PTI's Inside & Out: Birthday set and the 50th is from A|S's birthday builder set.  I used a star and circle punch from Marvy Uchida as well as a circle die from Nestabilities to get the shapes on the card.  Everything but the sentiment circle is inked with A|S wheat pigment ink and the green ink is Clearsnap moss green.

My card was inspired by this week's sketch from Clean and Simple Stamping.  I chose to have the stars represent the circles on the top and bottom of the sentiment circle and decided to leave off the "line" that ran through and under all three circles.  This is the first time that I have drifted so far from the original sketch.  I still feel like it's represented and you can see what I've done without me having to explain it.  I wanted to try something different and I also wanted to make sure the recipient of this card would like it. 

The colors for my card came from this week's color story at ColourQ.  At first I thought these colors would be fairly easy, but they turned out to be harder than I thought, especially when I was trying to use them along with making a card for a 50th bday.  They seem more like kid bday colors to me.  Anyway, I figured it out and am happy with the results.  Now let's just hope John is. :)

If you're still with me I hope you enjoyed my card and are having a great weekend!  Happy Crafting!

Sorry For Your Loss (Colour Q #88, CAS FTL #143)

I hope you all had a great week!  I made this card for a dear friend of the family and her husband who lost their dog while on vacation.  They were on a European trip of a lifetime and got word that their Pomeranian had passed away.  They don't have children of their own, so Rainy was like their baby and they were/are devastated.  Those of you who have dogs or pets know exactly what I'm talking about.  I only hope this card will ease a tiny bit of their pain by knowing that I'm there for them. 

Now let's get down to the details of the card.  The layout was inspired by this week's sketch at Clean and Simple Stamping.  I turned the sketch upside down because it worked better for me and for the card. 

CAS FTL #143

The bone patterned paper is from Doodlebug Design and the brown polka dot patterned paper is from the Lime Twist collection from My Mind's Eye.  The Lime Twist collection is one of my very favorite collections!  I am just in love with it!  Lately My Mind's Eye has put out the best collections of paper.  They are just soo cute!  The dog house stamp is an old stamp from A Muse Artstamps.  The sentiment stamp is from Hero Arts.  I used the Fiskars apron lace border punch on the brown cardstock that edges the bone patterned paper.  I broke out my Nestabilities classic rectangles large to die cut and emboss the cream cardstock rectangle panel.  I tried to keep the card rather embellishment free and toned down because it's a sympathy card.  I chose the colors because of this week's challenge at ColourQ and because I didn't want any loud colors or bright colors on this sympathy card. 

I really hope this card helps ease my friends' grief in some small way.  I also hope maybe it helps you with some ideas for your sympathy cards.  If you're hurting at all today, I send you hugs.  I hope you all have a great evening!  Happy Crafting!

Happy Easter Eggs (Card Patterns #111, Moxie Fab Tuesday Trigger: Crepe Bouquet, CQC #81, PTI: Make It Monday #11)

I went with an Easter card this time since we're so close to Easter.  I love this stamp set by Waltzingmouse Stamps!  It's got so many Easter stamp options and others for spring and Mother's Day.  The background patterned paper is a new paper pad that I broke out from Melissa Frances called 5th Avenue.  It's not generally my style, but I bought it for the times when I want something soft or when I want to try the shabby chic thing.  The yellow polka dot patterned paper is by PTI from their 2008 Bitty Dot Basics paper pad.  I just love that paper pad and pretty much anything from that company! 

Speaking of Papertrey Ink, they have a Make it Monday challenge every week over on Nichole's blog and this week's challenge was to use your dies to emboss paper but not in the usual way.  You can see in my photo that I used one of the Nestabilities large square dies and embossed a square into my patterned paper to frame my card.  There is a video of exactly what to do every week for the challenge on the blog, which is very helpful, and sometimes I even learn a few new tricks.  I also stamped my image on cardstock that was die cut and embossed with the scalloped circle Nestabilities.

The layout was inspired by this week's challenge over at Card Patterns.  I used the buttons, by Buttons Galore, to represent the three dots in the sketch.  I tried to use the cardstock, patterned paper, and the embossed frame to represent the inner line in the sketch with the rounded corners.  I hope I did the sketch justice. 

Tuesday Trigger: Crepe Bouquet

The colors in the card were inspired by this week's Tuesday Trigger: Crepe Bouquet and this week's ColourQ Challenge.  The white dress was the background for the flowers in the Trigger story and white is the background for my image, as well as the basket the eggs are in.  The pink jumped out at me and it's my favorite color right now, so I had to use it.  In Cath's explanation she mentioned Easter, so that's the direction I went in rather than a card full of flowers.  The picture is just a little blurry so I chose a patterned paper that reminded me of that, plus I also wanted something soft that would easily work in the color scheme.  I was really glad that the colors for the Trigger and CQC were so close so I could blend the challenges together, but at first it was difficult to think of something to do.  I hope you like the card, and that you have a wonderful Easter weekend!  I'm trying some new layouts for posting to spice it up, let me know what you think.  Have a great rest of your week!  Happy Crafting!

Happy Bird-day Banner (WMSC #40, Colour Q #78)

Good evening all!  This post is going to be very short and sweet cause I'm tired, have a headache, and need to go to bed.  I hope you've all had a great week so far.  Today was the first 60 degree day of the year here in Oregon and it really felt like spring for the first time.  It makes me excited for sunny days ahead. :)

My card tonight is inspired by the sketch below from Waltzingmouse Sketch Challenge and the color story below from Colour Q.  The cardstock is from PTI. The chipboard is from Fancy Pants and isn't it adorable?!  I bought it last weekend at the CK Scrapbook Convention, which was a blast!  :)  The stamp is from A Muse.  The twine and button are from my stash.  The white ink is frost white pigment ink by Clearsnap and the brown ink is Adirondack espresso by Ranger.  I think this card turned out pretty cute, what do you think?  Have a great rest of your week and a fabulous weekend!  Happy Crafting!