Ann was in charge of setting up a Tic Tac Toe board for The Paper Players this week which happens when there are five Sundays in a month.  

There are so many great options to choose from. I went on the diagonal from bottom left to upper right - circle, flowers, sentiment.

I started with Cosmos Bunch from PFS thinking I would do an eclipse card.  I changed my mind and cut a circle from a Masking Magic A2 panel.  The flowers in the center of the circle were stenciled with Altenew inks and then Arctic ink was brushed around the edges.  The panel was trimmed to add a border of green and then the BetterPress sentiment added.  I like the softness you get with the masking as opposed to cutting a circle from the center and popping it up.  

Sue is the host for Word Week at Just Us Girls and her word is

If you're behind on your Halloween cards, this is a chance to catch up.  If you don't usually make cards for this occasion, I hope you'll give it a try.

Christmas Kickstart is a good way to get going on your Christmas cards.  Jo and her elf-of-the month inspire you with some makes of their own using this month's theme - Christmas Critters. 

My card was made using Penny Black's Festive Frolic.  The images were colored with Altenew artist markers and the background was made with Distress Inks and masking for the hill.  I don't remember who makes the sentiment but I thought it worked great for the scene.

There's still time for you to make a card for The Flower Challenge using either heat or dry embossing.  

The Mondo Sakura from EH (oob) was stamped and gold heat embossed on Hammermill paper.  The blossoms were inked in the center with Spun Sugar Distress Ink and masked to color the background with Victorian Velvet, Seedless Preserves and Hickory Smoke.  

One would think I'd be using flowers for the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches but not this time. 

I dug out an old set from Penny Black called April Showers.  This card took a couple of turns before I ended up with this.  It started as a one layer card until I didn't like the way I colored the umbrella with my Altenew artist markers.    So I stamped and colored another one planning to place it over the first when I realized there were borders on the sketch.  I cut a panel down, cut some masking paper with Honey Bee's Deckle Edge rectangle, placing the negative on before inking with Stormy Sky DI.  That meant I also had to fussy cut the boots because PB didn't make dies back in the day.  The umbrella was stamped to get the handle, then placed over a PTI cloud.  The sentiment is from Stampendous.  

Today's card is for the Color Hues challenge - pink and blue.

A Penny Black dealer was retiring and getting rid of his supply so I took advantage of the sale and bought a number of stamps and dies.  My love of birds prompted me to buy Nature Sings which has four different birds on it.  I stamped the bluebird on Bristol and colored it with Zigs.  I masked the bird and made my own stencil to color the background with Kitsch Flamingo Distress Ink.  The branch was free-handed. 

It's Wild Card Week at Just Us Girls.  That means there were 5 Saturdays in January and our host Lisa can pick anything she wants for our challenge.  I think she did a great job with her choice.

 

There are several ways to use masking on your card but I chose to actually mask an image.  Several times.

First I made a smooshed panel on watercolor paper with Distress Oxides.  I don't think the photo gives a good color representation of what I used, Speckled Egg, Weathered Wood and Iced Spruce.  I wanted something a little solemn for a sympathy card.  The flower is from Fabulous Florets by Altenew and the sentiment from their Wildflower Garden. 

Have you seen the photo inspiration at Inspired By?  It reminds me of the wonderful cubbies Dawn McVey decorates at her home.  You may want to check them out @dawnsing on Instagram.  I only picked one of the cubbies to base my card on. 
See the second one down on the left.  That light green pitcher/watering can?  Here's what I did with that.
The green of the actual card is much lighter and more like the photo.  I stamped and masked the PB lily before using Altenew watercolors for the background.  After removing the mask, I watercolored the leaves and stem and then used PolyChromos pencils on the center of the flower and for shading. I stamped the sentiment from Jillian Vance and cut the panel with my NBUS rounded rectangles from Hero Arts. That was almost a disaster!  Evidently there was some brown ink on the cutting plate that remained from a previous pass through.  I thought I had destroyed all my work but then decided it gave the card a more rustic look like an old tin watering can would have.  That's making lemonade. ;)

Thanks for dropping by today.  I hope your week is off to a wonderful start.

Congratulations to CAS Stencil on celebrating its first birthday.   The prompt for this challenge is
I recently purchased the lovely "Leaves and Berries" stencil from Pretty Pink Posh and used it for my card.
A lot of masking happened on this stencil so the berries could be red.  I used Distress Inks initially and then went in with PolyChromos pencils to add even more shading.  To keep it clean and simple, a PTI frame was popped up on foam after adding the sentiment from Penny Black.

Thanks for dropping by.  Have a wonderful week.

My card today was made for CAS(E) This Sketch but it also fits into the Inspired By All the Little Things challenge.
I started by stamping and masking the bottles from W&W on Bristol.  I masked off the top of the card to ink the bottom in Hickory Smoke and went over it again through a SSS stencil.  The bottles were colored with Zigs and the branches stamped and Perfect Pearls dotted on.  Not exactly a Springtime look but I like it. 

Thanks for dropping by.  I hope your weekend went well and that you have a wonderful week ahead.

Here I am.  Late to the party again.  Two days left before both the CAS Watercolor Challenge and The Flower Challenge close.  I've had both cards made or partially made for days but got busy and haven't posted.  I'll remedy that right now.

For CAS Watercolor:
I spent one evening stamping and masking a bouquet of Altenew flowers on Bristol so I could color with my Zigs.  The next day while searching for a sentiment I looked at the card and thought "Oh no.  It's supposed to be CAS." In order to keep it that way I opted for a tiny sentiment from PB.  I hope that's enough white space.

For The Flower Challenge:
I hope this uses enough of the spotlight technique.  Only small portions of the Altenew flowers are outside the die cut circles and uncolored but I hadn't used these flowers in a long time and wanted to make a card with them.  Not quite the look I was going for but I'm happy.

Thanks for dropping by.  I love it when you do.

It's Color Week at Just Us Girls and Vicki wants us to use black, green and purple.  That said Halloween to me and that's the way I went.

I stamped this cute little mummy while Michele was here - it's her stamp - not knowing what I'd do with it.  I ended up covering him with masking fluid so I could ink up the background in the requisite colors using Distress Inks. The Black Soot almost obliterated the sentiment so I went over it with a black pen. 

How do you see using these colors?  Check out the Design Team and guest designer Karola to see what they have done for your inspiration.  Make a card for the gallery and you may be chosen Chic of the Week and be eligible for a guest designer spot in January.

We hope to see you there.

Well those 10 11 days went fast.  The 11 days that Darnell had open for her NBUS challenge.  I was waiting for a new order but it's not going to be here in time so I'm using my backup card - one I made the first day of the challenge but didn't post just in case.  Well, just in case time is here.  The challenge ends tomorrow and I'll be gone most of the day so I'm posting now.


I taped off a border on Fog cardstock, then stamped and heat embossed the flowers from CP/SOA in white.  Once they were cool, I inked the background with Fog, removed the mask and stamped the HA sentiment in the same ink.  I can see doing this in other colors and for other occasions.

Glad you dropped by again.

When I saw Inkspirational's word prompt this week I knew exactly what stamp set I'd use.  I only needed to figure out how.  I started with the sentiment and this is what happened.

MFT's The Whole Herd I know just who this is going to, too. Thanks for dropping by.

The sketch from CAS(E) This Sketch gave me a chance to get out my NBUS Altenew Garden Treasures. With a little masking I came up with this.

Zig coloring on Bristol Board; Sentiment from MSE

That's all for now.  Thanks for dropping by.

I've had this card for The Flower Challenge done for over a week.  Why oh why do I wait until the last minute to post?
This little card took a couple of turns before I was satisfied with it. On screen the oval looks much darker than the card base but it really isn't.  The lily is a PB stamp that I masked to stamp the other PB flowers on Bristol, colored with Zigs and splattered with DI. Then to the age old question, where to put the SSS sentiment.

I'm so glad you dropped by and hope your week is off to a great start.